Norman D. Dicks: “We've had a volcano. Mount St. Helens erupted and it was enormous. I had been told again and again when I was chairman…”

“We've had a volcano. Mount St. Helens erupted and it was enormous. I had been told again and again when I was chairman of Interior that California has a very complex system of detection. The rest of the country doesn't. Washington and Oregon do not have the same level of early warning equipment. So I think this is another thing that we've got to work on. Again, these cuts are going to make it more difficult for us to get the equipment that we need to predict and to detect when these things are occurring. I worry about Mt. Rainier. Mt. Rainier could have the lahar, and we've been told by USGS that Washington State could have a 9. This was 8-9, and look at the enormous damage that was done there. I mean, we could have another major event in the future. I hope it doesn't happen, but it does happen every 300 or 400 years.”