[music playing] jiuwit rosas: [speaking spanish] interpreter: there was a community. now, there is only rubble and sand. michael poland: there's a number of warning signs that volcanoes give. as magma rises, it starts to break rock apart, and that creates small earthquakes. there were some that were recurring in the area. george kourounis: then they started getting more intense and more frequent. michael poland: you'll see changes in the shape of the ground as magma rises because of the pressure that's building beneath it. don swanson: as this magma was slowly rising in mount saint helens, it was shoving the north side of the volcano outward at a rate of about 5 feet a day. george kourounis: it was eventually 400 feet, extending out from where the original side of the volcano had been. jess phoenix: unfortunately, we can't predict exactly when volcanoes are going to erupt, how long an eruption will last, or how big it will be. george kourounis: mount saint helens was having these smaller eruptions, but that pressure just kept building up and building up until it was o