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CNN Live Saturday

Activity Continues At Mt. St. Helenes; Jordanian Truck Driver Taken Hostage

Aired October 02, 2004 - 18:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


CAROL LIN, CNN ANCHOR: Coming up on CNN LIVE TODAY, we're going to be focusing on an active volcano that may be ready to blow. But right now here's a quick look at what's happening right now as well in the news.
We want to start in Iraq. A Jordanian truck driver is now a hostage. The militants holding him say they will kill him unless his employer stops doing business in Iraq.

And the presidential candidates had their turn, and now Dick Cheney and John Edwards are now getting ready for their one-on-one and one and only debate in Cleveland on Tuesday. That debate will take place with both candidates sitting. I guess that's important.

The parents of a missing Utah woman are thanking volunteers for finding her body. The remains of Lori Hacking were found yesterday in a Salt Lake County landfill. Her husband is charged with the murder and prosecutors say Mark Hacking confessed to shooting his wife in the head and disposing of her body.

Good evening, I'm Carol Lin and welcome to CNN LIVE SATURDAY. Will Mount St. Helens blow its top again? This hour, live pictures from above the threat while we follow the evacuations going on right now nearby.

And the Kobe Bryant case, what is in the recently opened court documents? And what could it mean for the basketball superstar. I've got the details straight ahead.

But right now we're going to begin with ominous, new developments at Mount St. Helens. Geologists are now saying there's a 50 percent chance or even greater chance of another eruption, which may involve flowing lava. CNN's Kimberly Osias is at the volcano right now.

Kimberly, it got dangerous enough. I know you had to move your position.

KIMBERLY OSIAS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That's exactly right, Carol. We have had to move. In fact, it's been a forced evacuation for media and tourists alike. Of course, since Mount St. Helens started waking up just last Thursday, thousands of people, in fact, have been flocking to the Johnson Ridge Observatory. It was actually at full capacity when the evacuation took place just around 2:00 Pacific Time. Cars are now snaking down the mountain. We are about 11 miles from there where geologists believe that we are at a safer distance. We are now at a level three alert. That is the highest alert level meaning that volcanic activity is imminent. What is also a little bit more of a concern for scientists is that they believe that magma now, warm earth, is actually moving up and bubbling closer to the creator's dome. Before they had done a number of tests of gas, CO2 and SO2 are what they were primarily looking for. They saw nothing of statistical significance, which would imminent or would mean that volcanic activity was imminent. Now they believe that those were essentially false positives, that there were gases that were under the dome but they were just being absorbed by the collected rain water.

I have been following this since everything started, carol. Tom Pearson with the U.S. Geological Survey, who just met with us, seemed definitely -- had a different tone and tenor about this press conference than he has had in the past -- Carol.

LIN: Kimberly, how close are any buildings other than the observatory? Are there houses? Are there restaurants?

OSIAS: Really restaurants and everything else. The nearest area I'm told is Castle Rock, which is about where most of the media is staying, about 50 miles down the mountain. There is a press conference that will beginning in the next several minutes or so and we will keep you posted on everything, of course, as details become more available.

LIN: All right.

OSIAS: Helicopters also, Carol -- I'm just now hearing them overhead, flying overhead, using infrared devices, keeping a safe distance. They were going to go back and do another gas test. Of course, yesterday, when Mount St. Helens blew, the only GPS device that was in the crater was blown out, actually shot out, so far out. And also, they had a microphone in there as well. They are not putting that back in because they simply don't feel that it is safe to do so at this point. So where they are going to get their readings are actually more on the periphery, on the crater's rim -- Carol.

LIN: All right, better safe than sorry. But great research going on and an exciting time to be there. Kimberly, thanks very much. I know you're going to be standing by in case anything happens.

Nobody expected yesterday's small eruption and several small earthquakes. I want to go to Orelon Sidney right now at the CNN Weather Center.

Orelon, just yesterday you and I were talking about how a volcano can actually affect the weather in the location. When you consider what happened yesterday with this plume of steam and ash flying some 10,000 feet up into the sky, what goes through your mind?

ORELON SIDNEY, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Well, this eruption was small. And I don't think it's going to have any climate effect whatsoever. The eruption that happened yesterday, pretty much had been anticipated for several days. It looks to me like that was mainly a steam eruption. If you've seen the pictures of the crater itself, there's the big crater, the big mountain that we see with the hole in it. And if you look over in the hole, it's not just a bottomless pit, it actually kind of kind of looks like a stadium with a flat crater floor there at the bottom. And on top of that, there is a crack. And on top of the crack, there is this big plug of hardened lava. And that's what the dome actually is. And around that, there's also a lot of snow, especially this time of year. And it starts to melt and kind of works its way down through the cracks and turns into steam. And I think that's the kind of eruption we saw yesterday. It was the steam blowing itself out of the dome.

Now, what apparently has happened is that the scientists are seeing a different type of earthquake. Their called harmonic tremors and that indicates that fluid is moving through rock. Rather than rock breaking, you're actually seeing fluid move through. So I think that's probably their main source of thinking that magma is working its way toward the surface. And that's how the dome grows. The lava dome is actually like a big clump of dried toothpaste in the toothpaste tube if you leave the top off. And if you squeeze that toothpaste tube, that liquid toothpaste tries to come out but that dome, that plug, is in the way. And so, I think that that's what's happening and because magma is much more viscous, it contains more gases. That's why scientists are expecting a more vigorous explosion this next time if it does happen.

LIN: Well, a pretty vigorous explosion back in 1980 when, what, 57 people were killed when Mount St. Helens blew its top with so much force.

SIDNEY: Right.

LIN: Orelon, are you anticipating anything like that this time?

SIDNEY: Not at all. No, not at all. That was a totally different type of event in which the magma chamber had been filling apparently for a couple months. They started to get earthquakes with the magma chamber filling and then there was an earthquake that caused a landslide on the northern side of the end of the mountain. And basically what that did was uncork the magma chamber and that's where we had the fibroblastic flows coming down the mountain and that big vertical blast as well.

This is a totally different thing. All the earthquakes have been very close to the dome. We haven't seen any deep earthquakes. We haven't seen earthquakes deeper than about one kilometer and that's good because that means it's probably more of a shallow event. If there is magma moving then I would expect to see maybe a few deeper earthquakes and then maybe I might get more concerned. But at this point, I know that Portland's about 50 miles away. I think Seattle is about that same distance. So I'm not really concerned about loss of life or property, especially far away from the mountain. But it is a fascinating time for geologists...

LIN: You bet.

SIDNEY: ...who do want to be safe in those areas. LIN: All right. Thanks very much, Orelon. Orelon Sidney, our meteorologist, keeping track of all kinds of conditions above as well as below the surface for us.

Obviously, a lot of activity going on, geologically. And I just want to let you know, stay tuned, because we are expecting to hear from the interior secretary, Gail Norton who took an aerial tour of Mount St. Helens today. We're waiting for that press conference to happen at any moment.

But let me give you a little bit of background here. Scientists have been closely monitoring this activity at Mount St. Helens for years, especially so in the last several days. So joining me right now from Washington to talk about what may happen is Tim Appenzeller. He is senior science editor for "National Geographic" magazine.

Tim, this is an exciting time, scientifically. I'm just -- let me get your take just in terms of public safety. I heard from Orelon Sidney. She does not anticipate that this is going to be a catastrophic event. What are your expectations?

TIM APPENZELLER, SENIOR SCIENCE EDITOR, "NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC" MAGAZINE: Well, as I understand it, things are pretty safe at the moment. They're not expecting anything on the scale of the 1980 blow up. And as we just heard, people have been evacuated from the area. So, things are pretty well under control. And the question now is what the volcano is going to do next.

LIN: Well, when you hear that there were, what, some 60 different earthquakes charted by seismographs typically at Mount St. Helens that doubled to more than 180 an hour. Some as large as a magnitude 3. That's pretty impressive.

APPENZELLER: It is and it's a sure sign that something is going on inside the mountain and that we can expect another eruption probably bigger than the little throat clearing, as they're calling it, that we saw yesterday.

LIN: A throat clearing. How do you -- what does that mean when it comes to a volcano? Can a throat clearing kill?

APPENZELLER: If you're right there, sure. Yes. You wouldn't have wanted to be in the crater yesterday. But it was very small compared to what the mountain is capable of. It was a burst of steam and a bit of ash. And most of the action was inside the crater. It was a little dusting of ash up to 10 or 20 miles away.

LIN: So when we hear that magma has been detected, the first indication that lava may actually flow out of the volcano, what does that tell you about what's going on with Mount St. Helens?

APPENZELLER: Well, there is lava inside the mountain at fairly shallow depths. Scientists think that a big sort of plug of it rose about six years ago from the depths of the earth and has been sitting there. And that may now be on the move. If it comes out, it may just add to this lava dome that is already inside the creator and has built up to about 900 feet high since 1980.

LIN: So from a scientific perspective, how exciting or important is this?

APPENZELLER: Oh, it's v very exciting. Scientists have a -- have the mountain just studded with instruments measuring everything from seismic activity to tilt to infrared emissions. And so they really have this mountain in the spotlight and they're learning something from every move it makes.

LIN: What do they do with that information? How does it translate into something tangible?

APPENZELLER: Well, it tells them how to read the warning signs of a volcanic eruption. So that as time goes on, they'll get better and better at predicting when a mountain is going to blow and how it'll blow.

LIN: Well, Mount St. Helens certainly seems to be an opinionated subject indeed. Thanks very much. Tim Appenzeller of...

APPENZELLER: Thanks for having me.

LIN: ..."National Geographic."

Ok, in the meantime, I've got politics to talk about. Securing an election in a war-torn nation straight ahead, soon to examine the tough road ahead for coalition forces as the fighting continues to secure Iraq's Democratic process.

Also, closing the gap, as both President Bush and John Kerry hit the campaign trail. A new poll is showing a tight race for the White House. Details on that coming up.

And catching up with baseball's new king of swing, we're going to get reaction worldwide to Ichiro Suzuki's Major League milestone.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LIN: All right. We have been following events out at Mount St. Helens as we await to see whether this volcano is going to blow today. We're waiting for a couple of news conferences. But in the meantime, I've got some explosive politics to talk about, maybe even an explosive poll result. We're going to move on to this "Newsweek" poll, for example. If it was -- the election was actually held today in a three-way match-up, the Kerry/Edwards ticket would take 47 percent of the vote. The Bush/Cheney camp would get 45 percent.

Now, in that same trial heat, Green Party candidates Ralph Nader and Peter Komaho would get two percent. But two percent in this race can make all the difference for either side, the Republicans or the Democrats.

Now, both of the candidates -- we're talking about Republicans and the Democrats -- are on the road today. President Bush is talking tough and bashing his Democratic rival as he crisscrosses the state of Ohio. And meanwhile, John Kerry is trying to hammer home his argument that Bush is a poor decision-maker as he campaigns in Florida before heading to Washington tonight. We've got two reports. Our Suzanne Malveaux and Frank Buckley are both traveling with the candidates. Right now, let's begin with White House correspondent Suzanne Malveaux.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SUZANNE MALVEAUX, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Across from the White House, anti-war protesters memorialize Americans killed in Iraq. While President Bush, on the campaign trail, continues to make the case he made the right decision to go to war.

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Knowing what I know today, I would have made the same decision. America and the world are better off with Saddam in a prison cell!

MALVEAUX: On a bus tour through the critical battleground state of Ohio, Mr. Bush continued to rebut his opponent's points at Thursday's presidential debate. With polls showing his opponent, Kerry, the widely viewed winner in the face-off, Mr. Bush is punching harder at what he says are Kerry's inconsistencies on Iraq, specifically, attacking what Mr. Bush has coined the Kerry Doctrine, a reference the Democratic candidate made about the need to meet a global test before carrying out a U.S. preemptive military strike. The Bush campaign releasing a new ad about it today.

BUSH: We'll continue working with our friends and allies for the sake of freedom and peace. But our national security decisions will be made in the Oval Office, not in foreign capitals.

MALVEAUX: Bush aides say the president is eager for the next debate, which is likely to focus on domestic issues. In Columbus, Ohio, he unveiled an initiative to increase American homeownership. In his weekly radio address he praised, his administration in advance for extending a $146 billion tax cut, which he'll sign into law on Monday.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Republicans are coming to Ohio talking about ownership and the American dream.

MALVEAUX: But the Democrats fired back by releasing a new ad in three key markets in Ohio, which says 57,000 homeowners were forced to foreclose last year and 237,000 Ohio residents have lost their jobs under Mr. Bush's watch. To counter the president's bus tour, a bus load of celebrities traveled a similar path to help voters register, which they hope will help to unseat Mr. Bush.

This week President Bush travels to Iowa, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Missouri where he'll highlight his domestic agenda in preparation for Friday's debate.

Suzanne Malveaux, CNN, Cihoga (ph) Falls, Ohio.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

FRANK BUCKLEY, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Senator John Kerry was critical of President Bush during a speech here focusing on domestic policy and economic issues. Senator Kerry saying that President Bush had consistently favored special interests over the interests of middle class Americans. The speech delivered here at Freedom High School in Orlando, Senator Kerry using the same argument he used to try to frame the foreign policy debate on Thursday, now trying to use that argument to frame the domestic policy debates taking place on October 8 and 13, that argument that President Bush can't fix problems if he won't acknowledge they exist.

SEN. JOHN KERRY (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: If you ask President Bush, he'd tell you that everything is just fine here at home. He'd tell you...

(END VIDEOTAPE)

LIN: Our apologies to the Kerry campaign as well as Frank Buckley. We want to bring you the latest information now on Mount St. Helens. This is the U.S. Geological Service news conference going on right now near the mountain.

(JOINED IN PROGRESS)

TOM PIERSON, USGS GEOLOGIST: ...based on that information and their past experience, and we go with that. Imminent means -- in this specific case, means we're expecting something within the next 24 hours from the time we issued that alert.

QUESTION: (OFF MIKE)

PIERSON: OK, well, I'll -- let me give you the kind of bigger picture of how we changed the situation kind of so fast, what appeared to be such a rapid turnaround in our view of this. First thing was that this morning we were in a long discussion with gathering all the experts with the USGS together, seismologists, gas, geochemists, physical book -- in other words, just all the guys who really know this stuff and people who have a lot of experience with volcanoes.

There were two things that were bothering us. As we had said earlier, we were thinking that what we were dealing with here was older magma that come up in 1998 to shallow levels below the dome and that that older magma was probably depleted in gas and therefore not very explosive. But that did not jive with the continued ramping up of the seismic levels in the earthquakes. We just kept getting bigger and more frequent and continuously upgrading earthquakes throughout and realized that by this morning we had had more seismic energy released than any time all the way back to May 18, 1980. And the experts felt that this just did not jibe with a relatively small batch of old magma. So we had to start thinking about could there be fresh magma in slightly larger amounts coming up.

And an explanation, a hypothesis for why we're not seeing the gas at the surface, which was one of our main data points, was that because this volcano was so wet. We have a glacier that's sitting on top of the vent area. It's melting. It's -- that melt water is dripping into the ground. We've had very heavy rains over the last couple months, at least heavy for this time of year, August and September. We have a lot water that's coming into the crater. At least ten inches of rain were measured on a rain gauge. It's -- we know from past experience that water in the grounds, near a vent, can actually soak up the gas. It dissolves the gas. The geologists say it gets scrubbed out and that scrubbing prevents the gas from coming to the surface and being detected. The implications of that is, well, maybe we are dealing with some fresh magma.

And then we had that puff of steam around noontime today. All of our earthquakes then stopped. We began getting a type of ground motion that's called harmonic tremor. Harmonic Tremor is like when your pipes rattle when water is flowing through a water pipe. It's a vibration. It's not an earthquake. It's a steady, even vibration. And that lasted for about 50 minutes. So while that was going on, and what that means is that fluid, in this case the fluid is magma, molten material, was moving up towards the surface. When that was happening, the Forest Service decided it was most prudent to start getting people out of the immediate area there. Even though that was outside what we had first considered our hazard area, the -- this upgrade in the potential for higher and bigger explosions and with more ash possibly being thrown into the air put the Johnson Ridge Observatory kind of on the ragged edge of what might we -- what we might consider to be the new hazard zone.

The other consideration was if a lot of ash suddenly goes into the air, a big black cloud, and if it blocks the sun, people tend to get really worried fast and panic. And with all those cars and only one road going out, that's a perfect prescription for panic and people driving too fast, and maybe people getting hit and going off the road and this sort of thing. So, the Forest Service call was to start the evacuation just to get people to a place we know is going to be safe. And back down to Cold Water, based on what we know now, is a safe location as is this here.

So, that's the summation of where we are now. The earthquakes that the -- the harmonic tremor has stopped and earthquakes have started up once again. That's not atypical. Very often magma as it moves up does so in pulses, goes for a while, stops, starts up again. So we're not really sure what we're going to see. This could last a bit longer than 24 hours now that it's stopped, but we're just going to have to wait and see.

QUESTION: (OFF MIKE)

PIERSON: I did not get a call on how frequent the earthquakes are, but quite a bit below the level that they were earlier today.

QUESTION: (OFF MIKE)

PIERSON: We just don't know how far it's coming or how fast it's moving. The reason is that it's extraordinarily difficult to locate earthquakes, which is our -- a way of telling where the magma is being active. But when you get to the really shallow levels, it's hard to locate the precisely the depth. So we're somewhere in that sort of half a mile to the surface. And we suspect it's closer than a half mile but we just don't know how much closer.

QUESTION: (OFF MIKE)

PIERSON: We're not putting any geologists on the ground in the crater. We are flying people in for very quick battery changes, and data dumps from computers on instruments that are further out but we're treating this seriously ourselves.

QUESTION: (OFF MIKE)

PIERSON: Well, things are really changing fast and we haven't had a chance to really sit down, put all the data together and run our statistical model again to really see what our best guess is. So, we're just kind of doing it as best we can on the run right now.

QUESTION: (OFF MIKE)

PIERSON: That is. Its' -- magma is moving when we see harmonic tremor, yes.

We also see a type of harmonic tremor when we have quite a bit of ground water moving in conduits also, such as around geysers. But it's doubtful that that is the situation that's going on here just because it's not Yellowstone. We don't have that kind of well- developed hydrothermal system.

QUESTION: (OFF MIKE)

PIERSON: Well, the slides and rock falls that are going on are in response probably to the earthquakes. They're relatively small earthquakes, but the size of the volcano are very unstable, and it just takes a little bit of shaking to break loose some pretty big boulders and when they start rolling down slope and kicking other stuff loose, we really get a lot of dust kicked up.

QUESTION: (OFF MIKE)

PIERSON: Well, in terms of VEI, which is volcano explosivity index, it's a way that geologists rate how explosive an eruption might be. We were thinking before today that maybe our largest possible was a one. But now we're thinking maybe the most likely is up to a two with a very slight chance of a three or four. But very, very low chance of those higher numbers. And when we jump up in numbers, it's kind of like the Richter scale. We're jumping up about 10 times in terms of how big an eruption we're talking about.

QUESTION: (OFF MIKE)

PIERSON: In those cases, we're talking about quite a bit more ash that could be thrown up in the air, going up several tens of thousands of feet, which would impact air traffic. It would also impact more people on the ground, although ash fall, unless you're very close or you -- unless you have a very heavy fall, it's not really life threatening. It's inconvenient. It's problematic for people who have breathing problems, asthma, for example. You don't want to breathe it in. But healthy people, if they do, can cough it out quite easily.

QUESTION: (OFF MIKE)

PIERSON: It depends on how much goes up and how high it goes and how far the -- and how fast the winds are blowing.

QUESTION: (OFF MIKE)

PIERSON: Yes, during the lava dome eruptions, we did have harmonic tremor detected, I believe in almost every case. It's very difficult when you get magma fairly close to the surface and just before it erupts.

QUESTION: (OFF MIKE)

PIERSON: They stopped 40 or 50 minutes after they started. They started when that puff of steam came up. And I think that was just after noon. I don't have an exact time.

QUESTION: (OFF MIKE)

PIERSON: Well, interesting question. The start of the magma moving implies that something caused the seal to break that was holding that magma in place. And that breakage of the seal probably cleared a pathway all the way to the surface fairly quickly, at least for some of the ground water and that came puffing out as a bit of steam. And the magma is still working its way behind, going much slower.

QUESTION: (OFF MIKE)

PIERSON: We won't know until it comes out. But what we can say is the seismic energy release has been the largest amount of energy release since 1980, yes.

QUESTION: (OFF MIKE)

PIERSON: It could be. We could hear a boom. We might not hear anything. It just depends on, I believe, the rate at which it comes out, whether or not any shockwaves are produced by the explosion. And we'll just have to see. Often they're silent. Even the 1980 eruption was totally silent for some people. Even though it was heard in Vancouver, B.C., it was not heard by people who were within 10 or 20 miles of the volcano.

QUESTION: (OFF MIKE)

PIERSON: Well, there's still a lot of excitement. All of us geologists are really curious to see what's going to happen. A little bit of worry comes in when we're concerned about the welfare of a lot of people who are close, and maybe a little too close for comfort. So we want to make sure everybody gets back to a safe location.

QUESTION: (OFF MIKE)

PIERSON: Well, the USGS has nothing to do with enforcing evacuations. We just try to provide the information that the Forest Service and similar agencies use. What I observed was a lot of cooperation with a lot of people obeying the evacuation requests.

QUESTION: (OFF MIKE)

PIERSON: That's not a decision for me to make. It's going to depend on getting the scientists together and pooling their experience and deciding when to do that. As long as -- I think, my guess, is that we'll probably stay at this level for a while to see if another episode of tremors starts up because we probably don't want to be bouncing back and forth between two and three every hour, for example. But we're just going to have to wait and see how they do that.

QUESTION: (OFF MIKE)

PIERSON: I don't know. We do have a helicopter in the area. I don't know if we have a plane flying or not.

QUESTION: (OFF MIKE)

PIERSON: The seismic energy prior to 1980? Well, the seismic energy released for the big eruption in 1980 was greater than what we're seeing now. I don't know by how much, but our seismologist said that since 1980, since that eruption ended, including some of the later eruptions in the summer and fall of 1980, this has been the largest seismic energy release.

QUESTION: (OFF MIKE)

PIERSON: Cold Water Ridge, the visitor center, is seven miles out. And we decided that that was a safe distance out. Again, I stress for now, we're going to track it and see. And it might change again.

OK. Thanks very much.

QUESTION: (OFF MIKE)

LIN: All right. That was Tom Pierson, a geologist with the U.S. Geological Survey giving an update on what's happening at Mount St. Helens. Very interesting because he did say right off the bat that something, something is going to happen in the next 24 hours. And he bases that on information that they got from yesterday's small eruption. There is more seismic activity on that mountain since the 1980 eruption that killed 57 people. They still don't anticipate an eruption on that scale but they do believe -- they have pretty good evidence that fresh magma under there is on the move. And that is one of the reasons why the evacuation was ordered for the Johnson Observatory and that scientists have been cleared from that area.

Joining me right now on the telephone is Tim Appenzeller. He is with "National Geographic."

Tim, I don't know if you got a chance to listen in at all on what Tom Pierson was saying, but essentially, he was talking about harmonic tremors, a steady stream of vibrations for nearly an hour that indicated to scientists that magma was on the move. They're very worried about the amount of seismic activity that is happening on that mountain. At one point, it was some 180 tremors an hour, some as big as a magnitude 3. Now that number cut in half. They're expecting something to happen. What do you make of all this?

APPENZELLER: Well, that we'll probably see another eruption bigger than the one we saw yesterday. And it sounds like -- I'm basing this just on the end of the press conference and what I've heard earlier, it sounds like with magma on the move, that there may be some molten rock squeezing out on to the floor of the crater and probably exploding as it comes out.

LIN: Is this just a natural evolution of this volcano?

APPENZELLER: It is. Mount St. Helens is active. It's erupted on a very large scale, four times since 1480. It's a very new mountain. It's only 40,000 years old and it built itself in a series of eruptions. So this is what it does. And this is on the small side for what it does.

LIN: Right. Although as much as they do know about the seismic activity and the magma moving underneath the dome what they're also saying is in terms of a level of the eruption, they're expecting a level one, two, or three. A two or three could spew ash and steam, some several ten thousands of feet. So given that scale, they really don't know what's going to happen.

APPENZELLER: They don't. They don't know with any certainty, no. I mean volcano science is developing rapidly. But the earth is mysterious. And they don't yet know how to -- exactly how to interpret these signs that the earth is giving us.

LIN: They said that the vibrations, which are caused by the magma moving in the mountain, stopped at about -- it was on the move and then it stopped about 40 to 50 minutes after yesterday's eruptions, some of the pictures that we're looking at right now, the steam going up in the air. Why for such a brief duration?

APPENZELLER: Well, what they think happened is that yesterday's small eruption was like a pressure release. If you open a can of soda, pressure bursts out. But then you put the cap back on and it starts to repressurize again. So when the pressure was released, the tremors stopped briefly. But as the mountain repressurized, they started up again and even increased to a higher level maybe before the eruption.

LIN: So how will they know when this episode is finally over and the mountain is at rest again?

APPENZELLER: Well, the signs they're seeing now will go away. The tremors will die down. The steam and ash will stop coming out. It isn't over until it's over, basically.

LIN: Well, there isn't any steam or ash coming up on the mountain now. I mean the pictures that we're looking at right now, these are from yesterday. This is a live picture of Mount St. Helens today. And by anyone's estimation, just looking at the surface, all things are calm but that certainly is deceptive.

APPENZELLER: It's not calm under ground, as they can tell from these earthquakes.

LIN: Interesting also that Tom Pierson said that a volcanic eruption can actually be silent. There are people who could be closer to the mountain and not hear it at all. How can that be?

APPENZELLER: I don't know. I don't how that can be.

LIN: Well, that's an honest answer.

APPENZELLER: Yes.

LIN: Yes, that was very peculiar. So what is it that you think the scientists are going to do now? Really, they can just stand by, watch and wait.

APPENZELLER: Yes. And I imagine they'll be collecting as much data as they can, putting instruments -- more instruments on the mountain when they think it's safe to do that and making flights over the mountain to measure gases and look for hot spots.

LIN: Well, how dangerous work is that right now?

APPENZELLER: I mean it can be dangerous. Volcanologists have been killed studying volcanoes. But knowing how dangerous this mountain is, I'm sure they're taking precautions.

LIN: All right, thank you very much, Tim Appenzeller. Exciting times for the USGS and for science whizzes like yourself to see what happens.

APPENZELLER: They are, indeed.

LIN: Sometime, something is going to happen in the next 24 hours according to the USGS.

I want to show a live picture, if we can, not only of -- we have been showing you pictures of Mount St. Helens. But we're also waiting to hear from the secretary of the interior sometime within this hour. She -- Gail Norton was able to take a helicopter tour of Mount St. Helens after an evacuation was ordered for the Johnson Observatory. Scientists have cleared that site. There should be no one anywhere near that mountain. But Gail Norton is going to be speaking to reporters, taking some questions. We'll find out if anymore additional evacuations may be ordered.

And we've got much more coming up in this hour as we wait for those news conferences and take another live look at the quiet looking mountain, not so underneath the surface. Mount St. Helens, something is going to happen there, another eruption perhaps in the next 24 hours. Live continuing coverage of this breaking news. We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) LIN: All right, live pictures of Mount St. Helens where the U.S. Geological Survey has confirmed that they expect something to happen there, possibly another eruption sometime in the next 24 hours. All indications are that magma is on the move underneath that quiet, seeming surface of Mount St. Helens. We're going to keep you posted. And we're also waiting for a news conference by the U.S. interior secretary, Gail Norton, who's going to be talking to reporters after she toured the site. She's obviously talked to a lot of the scientists and we're waiting for word on any additional evacuations to the Johnson Observatory where scientists now say that it is simply too dangerous to go anywhere near Mount St. Helens while there's so much volcanic activity underneath the surface.

Also, we want to tell you about some explosive new information in some documents that are now -- well, the criminal case has been dismissed against Kobe Bryant, but there still could be a trial in the civil suit according to his accusers. We're talking about documents that were released of the accuser's interview with Eagle County sheriff's investigators where she went into graphic detail about the alleged attack and also how that compares with what Kobe Bryant has also said to investigators.

I want to talk to sports columnist and attorney Rob Becker who is joining me now live about this from New York with more on this story.

Rob, the documents have been released because, frankly, the media has been suing to have the documents released. And we're getting a pretty graphic idea of, at least from the accuser's standpoint, what happened in that hotel room. For example, she says that she said no several times during this episode. And when investigators asked her well, how do you know he heard you, she said because each time she said no, his grip tightened around her neck. How damaging is this to Kobe Bryant?

ROB BECKER, ATTORNEY: Well...

LIN: Let's just talk from the legal standpoint in the civil case coming up.

BECKER: OK. Well, if that is believed, standing on its own, I think that would have been enough to get a conviction in the criminal case if the jury had believed it. So then, obviously in a civil case, if the jury believes that testimony, that testimony basically is rape. So, the question is will they believe them? And, look, Kobe -- a few weeks ago, we had a transcript of Kobe's interview with the police in which he gave, what I thought, was a very convincing account of complete innocence, that he was surprised that she would even bring this up. He couldn't believe that she was bleeding or that she had bruises. And it was just really a very convincing story. But now her story is kind of equally convincing.

LIN: Completely opposite, yes.

BECKER: And so, it's the classic he said/she said with a lot of details on each side that are really inconsistent although some are consistent. And, you know, in the civil case maybe it's a closer question. Maybe you could get all the jurors to believe, hey, it's more likely than not that she is telling the truth. But the problem is you have this extra evidence of, for instance, that supposedly this woman had sex with another man very soon after Kobe. And there is another interview she gave where at first -- the detective said to her how come you never said no? And she didn't contest that in one of those interviews.

LIN: But how does that jive with what Kobe Bryant said after the criminal charges were dropped, that he basically apologized to his accuser but said something to the effect that he could understand why she might think -- well, how did he phrase that, why she might think that it wasn't consensual?

BECKER: Well, he said -- yes, he said I can understand why you might think that it wasn't consensual, but I sure thought it was consensual. I'm sorry you felt the way you did. There's nothing there that's really giving himself away. It's not really all that damaging although ideally you wouldn't want it in a civil case. And remembers, she's promised not to use it in the civil case. But sometimes there's a miscommunication between the parties and what' he's really saying is most people -- most guys in my position wouldn't have thought you saying no. But apparently, you really didn't want to do this. So he's sort of saying you didn't communicate to me well enough your true wishes that I stop. Now, today, she's saying I said no a whole bunch of times and he had to have heard me.

LIN: Right. And that there was a -- but what's interesting about it is that not only that she said that she said no several times but there was a physical response on his part that he had his hands on her neck.

BECKER: Right, because it proves that he -- a, that he knew that she didn't want to go for it, and b, that he went forward by force knowing she didn't want to. That's why I say that by itself is rape.

LIN: Now, you talk -- you talked about eyewitnesses and conflicting testimony from eyewitnesses. One, a night auditor or manager at the resort who saw her shortly after the alleged attack who said that she didn't look agitated at all.

BECKER: Right.

LIN: But her parents and her boyfriend, who did say that night that she did look upset. How would that weigh in the civil case?

BECKER: I think that the woman's testimony of the night clerk who said she didn't look upset will amount to zero because the accuser met the night clerk that day. It makes perfect sense that if you had been raped, you don't tell everybody. You don't tell somebody you just met. You wait and confide in close friends of yours, such as the bellman who she was very close to.

LIN: But some people might argue that you would go running, screaming from the hotel room and you wouldn't care who heard you.

BECKER: But -- well, don't you think some raped woman might be very embarrassed particularly if something that happens at their job. They don't even want to let their employers know they went into the room with Kobe Bryant and set up a situation where something might have happened. So you know -- I mean women react in many ways and I don't think that everyone just tells anyone they know.

LIN: Sure.

BECKER: And particularly since she told others almost immediately there after, I don't see this as particularly inconsistent.

LIN: Well, not only women, but certainly people do react in different ways, you're absolutely right, under stress. So why doesn't Kobe Bryant write this woman a check? I mean has there been word out there that there has at least been an offer of a settlement?

BECKER: Well, look, we know that they talked because there was enough of a deal so that he knew that when he made that apology, the deal was it wouldn't be used against him in a civil case. So we know there's talks going on. We also know that the woman backed out of the criminal case because she didn't want to face the trauma of cross examination and the media. And remember in the criminal case, she was protected by a rape shield statute. When she goes into the civil case, there's no protection from a rape shield statute. There may be some protection, but a much greater portion of her previous sex life may come in. So if she didn't want to testify in the criminal case, I have to believe she wouldn't want to testify in the civil case and must be looking for money.

I don't know that for a fact...

LIN: Right.

BECKER: ...but that's what I conclude from these facts. I predict that in a month or so you'll see the case go away. But if there is a deal, we probably won't know the details because it'll be confidential. But remember, if you look at the Colorado statutes -- I've done some calculations -- I think the most, the best case scenario for this woman, if she won the case, the most damage she should get would be around $2 million, which, to Kobe is peanuts. So maybe he says I'll pay her to make it go away so it doesn't hang over my head for another year and mess up my career or maybe he says, you know, the worst you can do to me is get 2 million so go ahead and prove it. I don't have a down side. I don't know what Kobe thinks but he could think of it either way.

LIN: Rob, how in the world do you come up with a dollar figure based on what?

BECKER: Well, no, first there's a limit in Colorado. It's a very specific number. The most that you can get for pain and suffering, I think it's about $733,000. It used to be 500,000 plus the cost of living. Then you have -- you get to be paid for concrete expenses like paying your lawyers and paying your doctors. Let's say maybe that takes it up to a million...

LIN: I got you.

BECKER: ...then if you have punitive damages, you double it.

LIN: There you go, do the math in a crime case. Thanks very much, Rob. Becker -- Rob Becker, sports attorney.

Let's go to the interior secretary, Gail Norton, about Mount St. Helens and whether it's going to blow.

(JOINED IN PROGRESS)

GAIL NORTON, INTERIOR SECRETARY: ... of course, the devastation that has taken place in the past. What we see today is a new vent hole that has arisen, and some areas of the crater that are beginning to bulge. There are a number of things that are taking place and USGS is monitoring these situations.

The current situation is one that began with monitoring on September 23 as we were beginning to see some changes taking place in the mountain. The seismic activity has been occurring below Mount St. Helens. And this is the most intense that has been observed since 1980 and the explosion at that point. Today -- or yesterday, there was a steam emission, and you have certainly seen the photographs of that. And today, there was also a small steam emission. What we saw today was the beginning of a harmonic tremble. Instead of having the number of small earthquakes that have been taking place, this was a general rumble that took place. It was an ongoing vibration. That has now reverted back to more of the regular earthquake situation that we had been seeing for a few days. It was that change in the seismic activity that caused the USGS to elevate the alert status. And we are now in a level three alert. This is the red level of alert.

The data suggests that ongoing intense earthquake activity has weakened the rock carapacion dome increasing the likelihood of an eruption either in the form of more explosions or perhaps lava flow from the dome. The most likely scenario at this stage are additional small, moderate ash steam eruptions with ash rising as high as tens of thousands of feet. An explosive event like the one yesterday could blast rocks as large as a foot in diameter as much as three miles from the dome, likely in a northward direction. Explosions or eruptions could be accompanied by an outpouring of lava into the 925-foot dome that has been built up in the crater since the eruption in 1980.

The greatest public safety concern at this point is an ash plume and the spread of ash itself. That might come from an explosion. This is a concern for aircraft travel, and that is the primary concern. We are in some ways fortunate with the location because so much of the area around Mount St. Helens is unoccupied; we don't have the danger to surrounding populations that might otherwise occur. So obviously within the three miles around the volcano crater itself there is no one there except an occasional person who might be there studying that. And so, there's no one who would be directly in the line of danger from any projectiles that might come from the volcano.

We do have the possibility that the ash could cover a much larger area. And there are some concerns about respiratory problems and about traffic problems that might be caused because of the obscuring of visibility because of the ash. Overall, again, we are very fortunate that there's no one who lives directly in the area that would be most impacted.

The USGS Cascade Volcano Observatory is continuing to monitor this situation closely. I have been told that this is similar to monitoring and predicting a tornado. We can say that the situation is right but you can't say exactly what is going to happen until something does, indeed happen. I've been impressed by what I've seen with the seismic monitoring that takes place here, the photographic monitoring, the studies that are taking place by the scientists to be able to monitor everything that is going on very closely to get word out immediately as new developments occur.

We have been informed by the Forest Service that the Johnson Ridge Visitor Center has been evacuated. The Cold Water apparently remains open and that is a decision that is made by the Forest Service.

We appreciate the great interest. We are very proud at the Department of the Interior, of the work of the scientists in the U.S. Geological Survey who bring their expertise to the assistance of public safety. Thank you.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Would you like to speak next? Senator Cantwell will speak next.

SEN. MARIA CANTWELL, WASHINGTON: Thank you. I want to thank Secretary Norton for visiting the northwest today and paying particular attention to this issue that is so important to Washingtonians and Oregonians as well. Secretary Norton's agency, the Department of Interior, oversees the USGS. So they are within her agency. And I think it's safe to say that the investment -- excuse me -- by our government in the U.S. Geological Survey is providing great information to all of us in monitoring the events of yesterday, the past several years, and the events that may come in the next following days. So I want to thank the men and women who have been a part of this operation because it is their hard work, their scientific information that is helping the rest of the community plan and prepare for the best outcome, if an event does happen. Their communication is the basis that goes to the state's emergency management team and to various other providers within the community that are working on those issues as air transportation alert, as the secretary said, is a major concern being an event where an ash explosion could be something similar to very high elevations and things that we've seen in the past.

I think it's safe to say Washingtonians remember digging out the ash from streets, the masks on the face of people in Yakama and other parts of the state. I don't think that that's what anybody is expecting here. But we appreciate the hard work and the advance notice that this team of people is giving us so that we can prepare, that people are aware, and that the agencies plan for the important issues of air transportation and other issues of health and safety of our population. So again, thank you Secretary Norton and thank you USGS for the fine work that you do. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We'd like to hear next -- or actually Congressman Brian Baird is going to speak next to us. Thanks.

REP. BRIAN BAIRD, WASHINGTON: I want to echo Senator Cantwell's remarks and welcome Secretary Norton to southwest Washington. We're very proud to have Mount St. Helens here in our backyard. All of us remember -- it's been 25 years ago since Mount St. Helens first erupted. And I look around at faces of people who were maybe an early or mid career, and it was the defining moment of many of our lives. And I want to share and express my appreciation. We should -- people should know that quite literally, around the clock, the scientist, the men and women here, are working around the clock struggling with the data saying what does this latest tremor mean? How do we interpret this series of events? What do we know from past opportunities and what will they teach us about the future?

Public safety today around the mountain depends on their good work. And the material and information they gather from this event will help us save lives and save property in the future. So I want to make sure that we do everything we can in Congress to assure that these good people have all the resources, financial, personnel, equipment, et cetera to do the very, very best job they can do in this immediate event and to help us learn from that event and prepare for future events. So let me express my profound gratitude to folks. And once this event is over, I hope people will come back and visit Mount St. Helens on the 25th anniversary. We're very excited about that. And I thank you all for being here.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And we hope Mount St. Helens will quiet down in time so we can have a 25th anniversary. We'll next hear from Congressman Greg Waldon (ph) from Oregon.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Well, thank you very much. I represent all of eastern Oregon and I'm the chairman of the Subcommittee on Forest and Forest Health. And I wanted to get a firsthand look at what scientists are finding here and I also wanted to make sure Mount St. Helens stays a Washington mountain and doesn't come on over in our direction. But I just want to commend the folks at the USGS...

LIN: Congressional representatives thanking the USGS after interior secretary Gail Norton has given the latest report that the area is on a red alert status. They are expecting more seismic activity, in fact, more lava to flow from the dome at Mount St. Helens sometime in the next 24 hours. The greatest danger right now would be any kind of plume of ash and smoke that would spread from that event, warning of respiratory problems and also there is an air transport alert. Several of the Forest Service members have evacuated the Johnson Bridge Observatory area. All tourists, scientists, everyone have been ordered off the mountain. We are going to have continuing coverage throughout the night and on our primetime show at 10:00 p.m. Eastern.

But right now, I want to talk to Mark Shields and "THE CAPITAL GANG."

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com


Aired October 2, 2004 - 18:00   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
CAROL LIN, CNN ANCHOR: Coming up on CNN LIVE TODAY, we're going to be focusing on an active volcano that may be ready to blow. But right now here's a quick look at what's happening right now as well in the news.
We want to start in Iraq. A Jordanian truck driver is now a hostage. The militants holding him say they will kill him unless his employer stops doing business in Iraq.

And the presidential candidates had their turn, and now Dick Cheney and John Edwards are now getting ready for their one-on-one and one and only debate in Cleveland on Tuesday. That debate will take place with both candidates sitting. I guess that's important.

The parents of a missing Utah woman are thanking volunteers for finding her body. The remains of Lori Hacking were found yesterday in a Salt Lake County landfill. Her husband is charged with the murder and prosecutors say Mark Hacking confessed to shooting his wife in the head and disposing of her body.

Good evening, I'm Carol Lin and welcome to CNN LIVE SATURDAY. Will Mount St. Helens blow its top again? This hour, live pictures from above the threat while we follow the evacuations going on right now nearby.

And the Kobe Bryant case, what is in the recently opened court documents? And what could it mean for the basketball superstar. I've got the details straight ahead.

But right now we're going to begin with ominous, new developments at Mount St. Helens. Geologists are now saying there's a 50 percent chance or even greater chance of another eruption, which may involve flowing lava. CNN's Kimberly Osias is at the volcano right now.

Kimberly, it got dangerous enough. I know you had to move your position.

KIMBERLY OSIAS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That's exactly right, Carol. We have had to move. In fact, it's been a forced evacuation for media and tourists alike. Of course, since Mount St. Helens started waking up just last Thursday, thousands of people, in fact, have been flocking to the Johnson Ridge Observatory. It was actually at full capacity when the evacuation took place just around 2:00 Pacific Time. Cars are now snaking down the mountain. We are about 11 miles from there where geologists believe that we are at a safer distance. We are now at a level three alert. That is the highest alert level meaning that volcanic activity is imminent. What is also a little bit more of a concern for scientists is that they believe that magma now, warm earth, is actually moving up and bubbling closer to the creator's dome. Before they had done a number of tests of gas, CO2 and SO2 are what they were primarily looking for. They saw nothing of statistical significance, which would imminent or would mean that volcanic activity was imminent. Now they believe that those were essentially false positives, that there were gases that were under the dome but they were just being absorbed by the collected rain water.

I have been following this since everything started, carol. Tom Pearson with the U.S. Geological Survey, who just met with us, seemed definitely -- had a different tone and tenor about this press conference than he has had in the past -- Carol.

LIN: Kimberly, how close are any buildings other than the observatory? Are there houses? Are there restaurants?

OSIAS: Really restaurants and everything else. The nearest area I'm told is Castle Rock, which is about where most of the media is staying, about 50 miles down the mountain. There is a press conference that will beginning in the next several minutes or so and we will keep you posted on everything, of course, as details become more available.

LIN: All right.

OSIAS: Helicopters also, Carol -- I'm just now hearing them overhead, flying overhead, using infrared devices, keeping a safe distance. They were going to go back and do another gas test. Of course, yesterday, when Mount St. Helens blew, the only GPS device that was in the crater was blown out, actually shot out, so far out. And also, they had a microphone in there as well. They are not putting that back in because they simply don't feel that it is safe to do so at this point. So where they are going to get their readings are actually more on the periphery, on the crater's rim -- Carol.

LIN: All right, better safe than sorry. But great research going on and an exciting time to be there. Kimberly, thanks very much. I know you're going to be standing by in case anything happens.

Nobody expected yesterday's small eruption and several small earthquakes. I want to go to Orelon Sidney right now at the CNN Weather Center.

Orelon, just yesterday you and I were talking about how a volcano can actually affect the weather in the location. When you consider what happened yesterday with this plume of steam and ash flying some 10,000 feet up into the sky, what goes through your mind?

ORELON SIDNEY, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Well, this eruption was small. And I don't think it's going to have any climate effect whatsoever. The eruption that happened yesterday, pretty much had been anticipated for several days. It looks to me like that was mainly a steam eruption. If you've seen the pictures of the crater itself, there's the big crater, the big mountain that we see with the hole in it. And if you look over in the hole, it's not just a bottomless pit, it actually kind of kind of looks like a stadium with a flat crater floor there at the bottom. And on top of that, there is a crack. And on top of the crack, there is this big plug of hardened lava. And that's what the dome actually is. And around that, there's also a lot of snow, especially this time of year. And it starts to melt and kind of works its way down through the cracks and turns into steam. And I think that's the kind of eruption we saw yesterday. It was the steam blowing itself out of the dome.

Now, what apparently has happened is that the scientists are seeing a different type of earthquake. Their called harmonic tremors and that indicates that fluid is moving through rock. Rather than rock breaking, you're actually seeing fluid move through. So I think that's probably their main source of thinking that magma is working its way toward the surface. And that's how the dome grows. The lava dome is actually like a big clump of dried toothpaste in the toothpaste tube if you leave the top off. And if you squeeze that toothpaste tube, that liquid toothpaste tries to come out but that dome, that plug, is in the way. And so, I think that that's what's happening and because magma is much more viscous, it contains more gases. That's why scientists are expecting a more vigorous explosion this next time if it does happen.

LIN: Well, a pretty vigorous explosion back in 1980 when, what, 57 people were killed when Mount St. Helens blew its top with so much force.

SIDNEY: Right.

LIN: Orelon, are you anticipating anything like that this time?

SIDNEY: Not at all. No, not at all. That was a totally different type of event in which the magma chamber had been filling apparently for a couple months. They started to get earthquakes with the magma chamber filling and then there was an earthquake that caused a landslide on the northern side of the end of the mountain. And basically what that did was uncork the magma chamber and that's where we had the fibroblastic flows coming down the mountain and that big vertical blast as well.

This is a totally different thing. All the earthquakes have been very close to the dome. We haven't seen any deep earthquakes. We haven't seen earthquakes deeper than about one kilometer and that's good because that means it's probably more of a shallow event. If there is magma moving then I would expect to see maybe a few deeper earthquakes and then maybe I might get more concerned. But at this point, I know that Portland's about 50 miles away. I think Seattle is about that same distance. So I'm not really concerned about loss of life or property, especially far away from the mountain. But it is a fascinating time for geologists...

LIN: You bet.

SIDNEY: ...who do want to be safe in those areas. LIN: All right. Thanks very much, Orelon. Orelon Sidney, our meteorologist, keeping track of all kinds of conditions above as well as below the surface for us.

Obviously, a lot of activity going on, geologically. And I just want to let you know, stay tuned, because we are expecting to hear from the interior secretary, Gail Norton who took an aerial tour of Mount St. Helens today. We're waiting for that press conference to happen at any moment.

But let me give you a little bit of background here. Scientists have been closely monitoring this activity at Mount St. Helens for years, especially so in the last several days. So joining me right now from Washington to talk about what may happen is Tim Appenzeller. He is senior science editor for "National Geographic" magazine.

Tim, this is an exciting time, scientifically. I'm just -- let me get your take just in terms of public safety. I heard from Orelon Sidney. She does not anticipate that this is going to be a catastrophic event. What are your expectations?

TIM APPENZELLER, SENIOR SCIENCE EDITOR, "NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC" MAGAZINE: Well, as I understand it, things are pretty safe at the moment. They're not expecting anything on the scale of the 1980 blow up. And as we just heard, people have been evacuated from the area. So, things are pretty well under control. And the question now is what the volcano is going to do next.

LIN: Well, when you hear that there were, what, some 60 different earthquakes charted by seismographs typically at Mount St. Helens that doubled to more than 180 an hour. Some as large as a magnitude 3. That's pretty impressive.

APPENZELLER: It is and it's a sure sign that something is going on inside the mountain and that we can expect another eruption probably bigger than the little throat clearing, as they're calling it, that we saw yesterday.

LIN: A throat clearing. How do you -- what does that mean when it comes to a volcano? Can a throat clearing kill?

APPENZELLER: If you're right there, sure. Yes. You wouldn't have wanted to be in the crater yesterday. But it was very small compared to what the mountain is capable of. It was a burst of steam and a bit of ash. And most of the action was inside the crater. It was a little dusting of ash up to 10 or 20 miles away.

LIN: So when we hear that magma has been detected, the first indication that lava may actually flow out of the volcano, what does that tell you about what's going on with Mount St. Helens?

APPENZELLER: Well, there is lava inside the mountain at fairly shallow depths. Scientists think that a big sort of plug of it rose about six years ago from the depths of the earth and has been sitting there. And that may now be on the move. If it comes out, it may just add to this lava dome that is already inside the creator and has built up to about 900 feet high since 1980.

LIN: So from a scientific perspective, how exciting or important is this?

APPENZELLER: Oh, it's v very exciting. Scientists have a -- have the mountain just studded with instruments measuring everything from seismic activity to tilt to infrared emissions. And so they really have this mountain in the spotlight and they're learning something from every move it makes.

LIN: What do they do with that information? How does it translate into something tangible?

APPENZELLER: Well, it tells them how to read the warning signs of a volcanic eruption. So that as time goes on, they'll get better and better at predicting when a mountain is going to blow and how it'll blow.

LIN: Well, Mount St. Helens certainly seems to be an opinionated subject indeed. Thanks very much. Tim Appenzeller of...

APPENZELLER: Thanks for having me.

LIN: ..."National Geographic."

Ok, in the meantime, I've got politics to talk about. Securing an election in a war-torn nation straight ahead, soon to examine the tough road ahead for coalition forces as the fighting continues to secure Iraq's Democratic process.

Also, closing the gap, as both President Bush and John Kerry hit the campaign trail. A new poll is showing a tight race for the White House. Details on that coming up.

And catching up with baseball's new king of swing, we're going to get reaction worldwide to Ichiro Suzuki's Major League milestone.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LIN: All right. We have been following events out at Mount St. Helens as we await to see whether this volcano is going to blow today. We're waiting for a couple of news conferences. But in the meantime, I've got some explosive politics to talk about, maybe even an explosive poll result. We're going to move on to this "Newsweek" poll, for example. If it was -- the election was actually held today in a three-way match-up, the Kerry/Edwards ticket would take 47 percent of the vote. The Bush/Cheney camp would get 45 percent.

Now, in that same trial heat, Green Party candidates Ralph Nader and Peter Komaho would get two percent. But two percent in this race can make all the difference for either side, the Republicans or the Democrats.

Now, both of the candidates -- we're talking about Republicans and the Democrats -- are on the road today. President Bush is talking tough and bashing his Democratic rival as he crisscrosses the state of Ohio. And meanwhile, John Kerry is trying to hammer home his argument that Bush is a poor decision-maker as he campaigns in Florida before heading to Washington tonight. We've got two reports. Our Suzanne Malveaux and Frank Buckley are both traveling with the candidates. Right now, let's begin with White House correspondent Suzanne Malveaux.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SUZANNE MALVEAUX, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Across from the White House, anti-war protesters memorialize Americans killed in Iraq. While President Bush, on the campaign trail, continues to make the case he made the right decision to go to war.

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Knowing what I know today, I would have made the same decision. America and the world are better off with Saddam in a prison cell!

MALVEAUX: On a bus tour through the critical battleground state of Ohio, Mr. Bush continued to rebut his opponent's points at Thursday's presidential debate. With polls showing his opponent, Kerry, the widely viewed winner in the face-off, Mr. Bush is punching harder at what he says are Kerry's inconsistencies on Iraq, specifically, attacking what Mr. Bush has coined the Kerry Doctrine, a reference the Democratic candidate made about the need to meet a global test before carrying out a U.S. preemptive military strike. The Bush campaign releasing a new ad about it today.

BUSH: We'll continue working with our friends and allies for the sake of freedom and peace. But our national security decisions will be made in the Oval Office, not in foreign capitals.

MALVEAUX: Bush aides say the president is eager for the next debate, which is likely to focus on domestic issues. In Columbus, Ohio, he unveiled an initiative to increase American homeownership. In his weekly radio address he praised, his administration in advance for extending a $146 billion tax cut, which he'll sign into law on Monday.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Republicans are coming to Ohio talking about ownership and the American dream.

MALVEAUX: But the Democrats fired back by releasing a new ad in three key markets in Ohio, which says 57,000 homeowners were forced to foreclose last year and 237,000 Ohio residents have lost their jobs under Mr. Bush's watch. To counter the president's bus tour, a bus load of celebrities traveled a similar path to help voters register, which they hope will help to unseat Mr. Bush.

This week President Bush travels to Iowa, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Missouri where he'll highlight his domestic agenda in preparation for Friday's debate.

Suzanne Malveaux, CNN, Cihoga (ph) Falls, Ohio.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

FRANK BUCKLEY, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Senator John Kerry was critical of President Bush during a speech here focusing on domestic policy and economic issues. Senator Kerry saying that President Bush had consistently favored special interests over the interests of middle class Americans. The speech delivered here at Freedom High School in Orlando, Senator Kerry using the same argument he used to try to frame the foreign policy debate on Thursday, now trying to use that argument to frame the domestic policy debates taking place on October 8 and 13, that argument that President Bush can't fix problems if he won't acknowledge they exist.

SEN. JOHN KERRY (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: If you ask President Bush, he'd tell you that everything is just fine here at home. He'd tell you...

(END VIDEOTAPE)

LIN: Our apologies to the Kerry campaign as well as Frank Buckley. We want to bring you the latest information now on Mount St. Helens. This is the U.S. Geological Service news conference going on right now near the mountain.

(JOINED IN PROGRESS)

TOM PIERSON, USGS GEOLOGIST: ...based on that information and their past experience, and we go with that. Imminent means -- in this specific case, means we're expecting something within the next 24 hours from the time we issued that alert.

QUESTION: (OFF MIKE)

PIERSON: OK, well, I'll -- let me give you the kind of bigger picture of how we changed the situation kind of so fast, what appeared to be such a rapid turnaround in our view of this. First thing was that this morning we were in a long discussion with gathering all the experts with the USGS together, seismologists, gas, geochemists, physical book -- in other words, just all the guys who really know this stuff and people who have a lot of experience with volcanoes.

There were two things that were bothering us. As we had said earlier, we were thinking that what we were dealing with here was older magma that come up in 1998 to shallow levels below the dome and that that older magma was probably depleted in gas and therefore not very explosive. But that did not jive with the continued ramping up of the seismic levels in the earthquakes. We just kept getting bigger and more frequent and continuously upgrading earthquakes throughout and realized that by this morning we had had more seismic energy released than any time all the way back to May 18, 1980. And the experts felt that this just did not jibe with a relatively small batch of old magma. So we had to start thinking about could there be fresh magma in slightly larger amounts coming up.

And an explanation, a hypothesis for why we're not seeing the gas at the surface, which was one of our main data points, was that because this volcano was so wet. We have a glacier that's sitting on top of the vent area. It's melting. It's -- that melt water is dripping into the ground. We've had very heavy rains over the last couple months, at least heavy for this time of year, August and September. We have a lot water that's coming into the crater. At least ten inches of rain were measured on a rain gauge. It's -- we know from past experience that water in the grounds, near a vent, can actually soak up the gas. It dissolves the gas. The geologists say it gets scrubbed out and that scrubbing prevents the gas from coming to the surface and being detected. The implications of that is, well, maybe we are dealing with some fresh magma.

And then we had that puff of steam around noontime today. All of our earthquakes then stopped. We began getting a type of ground motion that's called harmonic tremor. Harmonic Tremor is like when your pipes rattle when water is flowing through a water pipe. It's a vibration. It's not an earthquake. It's a steady, even vibration. And that lasted for about 50 minutes. So while that was going on, and what that means is that fluid, in this case the fluid is magma, molten material, was moving up towards the surface. When that was happening, the Forest Service decided it was most prudent to start getting people out of the immediate area there. Even though that was outside what we had first considered our hazard area, the -- this upgrade in the potential for higher and bigger explosions and with more ash possibly being thrown into the air put the Johnson Ridge Observatory kind of on the ragged edge of what might we -- what we might consider to be the new hazard zone.

The other consideration was if a lot of ash suddenly goes into the air, a big black cloud, and if it blocks the sun, people tend to get really worried fast and panic. And with all those cars and only one road going out, that's a perfect prescription for panic and people driving too fast, and maybe people getting hit and going off the road and this sort of thing. So, the Forest Service call was to start the evacuation just to get people to a place we know is going to be safe. And back down to Cold Water, based on what we know now, is a safe location as is this here.

So, that's the summation of where we are now. The earthquakes that the -- the harmonic tremor has stopped and earthquakes have started up once again. That's not atypical. Very often magma as it moves up does so in pulses, goes for a while, stops, starts up again. So we're not really sure what we're going to see. This could last a bit longer than 24 hours now that it's stopped, but we're just going to have to wait and see.

QUESTION: (OFF MIKE)

PIERSON: I did not get a call on how frequent the earthquakes are, but quite a bit below the level that they were earlier today.

QUESTION: (OFF MIKE)

PIERSON: We just don't know how far it's coming or how fast it's moving. The reason is that it's extraordinarily difficult to locate earthquakes, which is our -- a way of telling where the magma is being active. But when you get to the really shallow levels, it's hard to locate the precisely the depth. So we're somewhere in that sort of half a mile to the surface. And we suspect it's closer than a half mile but we just don't know how much closer.

QUESTION: (OFF MIKE)

PIERSON: We're not putting any geologists on the ground in the crater. We are flying people in for very quick battery changes, and data dumps from computers on instruments that are further out but we're treating this seriously ourselves.

QUESTION: (OFF MIKE)

PIERSON: Well, things are really changing fast and we haven't had a chance to really sit down, put all the data together and run our statistical model again to really see what our best guess is. So, we're just kind of doing it as best we can on the run right now.

QUESTION: (OFF MIKE)

PIERSON: That is. Its' -- magma is moving when we see harmonic tremor, yes.

We also see a type of harmonic tremor when we have quite a bit of ground water moving in conduits also, such as around geysers. But it's doubtful that that is the situation that's going on here just because it's not Yellowstone. We don't have that kind of well- developed hydrothermal system.

QUESTION: (OFF MIKE)

PIERSON: Well, the slides and rock falls that are going on are in response probably to the earthquakes. They're relatively small earthquakes, but the size of the volcano are very unstable, and it just takes a little bit of shaking to break loose some pretty big boulders and when they start rolling down slope and kicking other stuff loose, we really get a lot of dust kicked up.

QUESTION: (OFF MIKE)

PIERSON: Well, in terms of VEI, which is volcano explosivity index, it's a way that geologists rate how explosive an eruption might be. We were thinking before today that maybe our largest possible was a one. But now we're thinking maybe the most likely is up to a two with a very slight chance of a three or four. But very, very low chance of those higher numbers. And when we jump up in numbers, it's kind of like the Richter scale. We're jumping up about 10 times in terms of how big an eruption we're talking about.

QUESTION: (OFF MIKE)

PIERSON: In those cases, we're talking about quite a bit more ash that could be thrown up in the air, going up several tens of thousands of feet, which would impact air traffic. It would also impact more people on the ground, although ash fall, unless you're very close or you -- unless you have a very heavy fall, it's not really life threatening. It's inconvenient. It's problematic for people who have breathing problems, asthma, for example. You don't want to breathe it in. But healthy people, if they do, can cough it out quite easily.

QUESTION: (OFF MIKE)

PIERSON: It depends on how much goes up and how high it goes and how far the -- and how fast the winds are blowing.

QUESTION: (OFF MIKE)

PIERSON: Yes, during the lava dome eruptions, we did have harmonic tremor detected, I believe in almost every case. It's very difficult when you get magma fairly close to the surface and just before it erupts.

QUESTION: (OFF MIKE)

PIERSON: They stopped 40 or 50 minutes after they started. They started when that puff of steam came up. And I think that was just after noon. I don't have an exact time.

QUESTION: (OFF MIKE)

PIERSON: Well, interesting question. The start of the magma moving implies that something caused the seal to break that was holding that magma in place. And that breakage of the seal probably cleared a pathway all the way to the surface fairly quickly, at least for some of the ground water and that came puffing out as a bit of steam. And the magma is still working its way behind, going much slower.

QUESTION: (OFF MIKE)

PIERSON: We won't know until it comes out. But what we can say is the seismic energy release has been the largest amount of energy release since 1980, yes.

QUESTION: (OFF MIKE)

PIERSON: It could be. We could hear a boom. We might not hear anything. It just depends on, I believe, the rate at which it comes out, whether or not any shockwaves are produced by the explosion. And we'll just have to see. Often they're silent. Even the 1980 eruption was totally silent for some people. Even though it was heard in Vancouver, B.C., it was not heard by people who were within 10 or 20 miles of the volcano.

QUESTION: (OFF MIKE)

PIERSON: Well, there's still a lot of excitement. All of us geologists are really curious to see what's going to happen. A little bit of worry comes in when we're concerned about the welfare of a lot of people who are close, and maybe a little too close for comfort. So we want to make sure everybody gets back to a safe location.

QUESTION: (OFF MIKE)

PIERSON: Well, the USGS has nothing to do with enforcing evacuations. We just try to provide the information that the Forest Service and similar agencies use. What I observed was a lot of cooperation with a lot of people obeying the evacuation requests.

QUESTION: (OFF MIKE)

PIERSON: That's not a decision for me to make. It's going to depend on getting the scientists together and pooling their experience and deciding when to do that. As long as -- I think, my guess, is that we'll probably stay at this level for a while to see if another episode of tremors starts up because we probably don't want to be bouncing back and forth between two and three every hour, for example. But we're just going to have to wait and see how they do that.

QUESTION: (OFF MIKE)

PIERSON: I don't know. We do have a helicopter in the area. I don't know if we have a plane flying or not.

QUESTION: (OFF MIKE)

PIERSON: The seismic energy prior to 1980? Well, the seismic energy released for the big eruption in 1980 was greater than what we're seeing now. I don't know by how much, but our seismologist said that since 1980, since that eruption ended, including some of the later eruptions in the summer and fall of 1980, this has been the largest seismic energy release.

QUESTION: (OFF MIKE)

PIERSON: Cold Water Ridge, the visitor center, is seven miles out. And we decided that that was a safe distance out. Again, I stress for now, we're going to track it and see. And it might change again.

OK. Thanks very much.

QUESTION: (OFF MIKE)

LIN: All right. That was Tom Pierson, a geologist with the U.S. Geological Survey giving an update on what's happening at Mount St. Helens. Very interesting because he did say right off the bat that something, something is going to happen in the next 24 hours. And he bases that on information that they got from yesterday's small eruption. There is more seismic activity on that mountain since the 1980 eruption that killed 57 people. They still don't anticipate an eruption on that scale but they do believe -- they have pretty good evidence that fresh magma under there is on the move. And that is one of the reasons why the evacuation was ordered for the Johnson Observatory and that scientists have been cleared from that area.

Joining me right now on the telephone is Tim Appenzeller. He is with "National Geographic."

Tim, I don't know if you got a chance to listen in at all on what Tom Pierson was saying, but essentially, he was talking about harmonic tremors, a steady stream of vibrations for nearly an hour that indicated to scientists that magma was on the move. They're very worried about the amount of seismic activity that is happening on that mountain. At one point, it was some 180 tremors an hour, some as big as a magnitude 3. Now that number cut in half. They're expecting something to happen. What do you make of all this?

APPENZELLER: Well, that we'll probably see another eruption bigger than the one we saw yesterday. And it sounds like -- I'm basing this just on the end of the press conference and what I've heard earlier, it sounds like with magma on the move, that there may be some molten rock squeezing out on to the floor of the crater and probably exploding as it comes out.

LIN: Is this just a natural evolution of this volcano?

APPENZELLER: It is. Mount St. Helens is active. It's erupted on a very large scale, four times since 1480. It's a very new mountain. It's only 40,000 years old and it built itself in a series of eruptions. So this is what it does. And this is on the small side for what it does.

LIN: Right. Although as much as they do know about the seismic activity and the magma moving underneath the dome what they're also saying is in terms of a level of the eruption, they're expecting a level one, two, or three. A two or three could spew ash and steam, some several ten thousands of feet. So given that scale, they really don't know what's going to happen.

APPENZELLER: They don't. They don't know with any certainty, no. I mean volcano science is developing rapidly. But the earth is mysterious. And they don't yet know how to -- exactly how to interpret these signs that the earth is giving us.

LIN: They said that the vibrations, which are caused by the magma moving in the mountain, stopped at about -- it was on the move and then it stopped about 40 to 50 minutes after yesterday's eruptions, some of the pictures that we're looking at right now, the steam going up in the air. Why for such a brief duration?

APPENZELLER: Well, what they think happened is that yesterday's small eruption was like a pressure release. If you open a can of soda, pressure bursts out. But then you put the cap back on and it starts to repressurize again. So when the pressure was released, the tremors stopped briefly. But as the mountain repressurized, they started up again and even increased to a higher level maybe before the eruption.

LIN: So how will they know when this episode is finally over and the mountain is at rest again?

APPENZELLER: Well, the signs they're seeing now will go away. The tremors will die down. The steam and ash will stop coming out. It isn't over until it's over, basically.

LIN: Well, there isn't any steam or ash coming up on the mountain now. I mean the pictures that we're looking at right now, these are from yesterday. This is a live picture of Mount St. Helens today. And by anyone's estimation, just looking at the surface, all things are calm but that certainly is deceptive.

APPENZELLER: It's not calm under ground, as they can tell from these earthquakes.

LIN: Interesting also that Tom Pierson said that a volcanic eruption can actually be silent. There are people who could be closer to the mountain and not hear it at all. How can that be?

APPENZELLER: I don't know. I don't how that can be.

LIN: Well, that's an honest answer.

APPENZELLER: Yes.

LIN: Yes, that was very peculiar. So what is it that you think the scientists are going to do now? Really, they can just stand by, watch and wait.

APPENZELLER: Yes. And I imagine they'll be collecting as much data as they can, putting instruments -- more instruments on the mountain when they think it's safe to do that and making flights over the mountain to measure gases and look for hot spots.

LIN: Well, how dangerous work is that right now?

APPENZELLER: I mean it can be dangerous. Volcanologists have been killed studying volcanoes. But knowing how dangerous this mountain is, I'm sure they're taking precautions.

LIN: All right, thank you very much, Tim Appenzeller. Exciting times for the USGS and for science whizzes like yourself to see what happens.

APPENZELLER: They are, indeed.

LIN: Sometime, something is going to happen in the next 24 hours according to the USGS.

I want to show a live picture, if we can, not only of -- we have been showing you pictures of Mount St. Helens. But we're also waiting to hear from the secretary of the interior sometime within this hour. She -- Gail Norton was able to take a helicopter tour of Mount St. Helens after an evacuation was ordered for the Johnson Observatory. Scientists have cleared that site. There should be no one anywhere near that mountain. But Gail Norton is going to be speaking to reporters, taking some questions. We'll find out if anymore additional evacuations may be ordered.

And we've got much more coming up in this hour as we wait for those news conferences and take another live look at the quiet looking mountain, not so underneath the surface. Mount St. Helens, something is going to happen there, another eruption perhaps in the next 24 hours. Live continuing coverage of this breaking news. We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) LIN: All right, live pictures of Mount St. Helens where the U.S. Geological Survey has confirmed that they expect something to happen there, possibly another eruption sometime in the next 24 hours. All indications are that magma is on the move underneath that quiet, seeming surface of Mount St. Helens. We're going to keep you posted. And we're also waiting for a news conference by the U.S. interior secretary, Gail Norton, who's going to be talking to reporters after she toured the site. She's obviously talked to a lot of the scientists and we're waiting for word on any additional evacuations to the Johnson Observatory where scientists now say that it is simply too dangerous to go anywhere near Mount St. Helens while there's so much volcanic activity underneath the surface.

Also, we want to tell you about some explosive new information in some documents that are now -- well, the criminal case has been dismissed against Kobe Bryant, but there still could be a trial in the civil suit according to his accusers. We're talking about documents that were released of the accuser's interview with Eagle County sheriff's investigators where she went into graphic detail about the alleged attack and also how that compares with what Kobe Bryant has also said to investigators.

I want to talk to sports columnist and attorney Rob Becker who is joining me now live about this from New York with more on this story.

Rob, the documents have been released because, frankly, the media has been suing to have the documents released. And we're getting a pretty graphic idea of, at least from the accuser's standpoint, what happened in that hotel room. For example, she says that she said no several times during this episode. And when investigators asked her well, how do you know he heard you, she said because each time she said no, his grip tightened around her neck. How damaging is this to Kobe Bryant?

ROB BECKER, ATTORNEY: Well...

LIN: Let's just talk from the legal standpoint in the civil case coming up.

BECKER: OK. Well, if that is believed, standing on its own, I think that would have been enough to get a conviction in the criminal case if the jury had believed it. So then, obviously in a civil case, if the jury believes that testimony, that testimony basically is rape. So, the question is will they believe them? And, look, Kobe -- a few weeks ago, we had a transcript of Kobe's interview with the police in which he gave, what I thought, was a very convincing account of complete innocence, that he was surprised that she would even bring this up. He couldn't believe that she was bleeding or that she had bruises. And it was just really a very convincing story. But now her story is kind of equally convincing.

LIN: Completely opposite, yes.

BECKER: And so, it's the classic he said/she said with a lot of details on each side that are really inconsistent although some are consistent. And, you know, in the civil case maybe it's a closer question. Maybe you could get all the jurors to believe, hey, it's more likely than not that she is telling the truth. But the problem is you have this extra evidence of, for instance, that supposedly this woman had sex with another man very soon after Kobe. And there is another interview she gave where at first -- the detective said to her how come you never said no? And she didn't contest that in one of those interviews.

LIN: But how does that jive with what Kobe Bryant said after the criminal charges were dropped, that he basically apologized to his accuser but said something to the effect that he could understand why she might think -- well, how did he phrase that, why she might think that it wasn't consensual?

BECKER: Well, he said -- yes, he said I can understand why you might think that it wasn't consensual, but I sure thought it was consensual. I'm sorry you felt the way you did. There's nothing there that's really giving himself away. It's not really all that damaging although ideally you wouldn't want it in a civil case. And remembers, she's promised not to use it in the civil case. But sometimes there's a miscommunication between the parties and what' he's really saying is most people -- most guys in my position wouldn't have thought you saying no. But apparently, you really didn't want to do this. So he's sort of saying you didn't communicate to me well enough your true wishes that I stop. Now, today, she's saying I said no a whole bunch of times and he had to have heard me.

LIN: Right. And that there was a -- but what's interesting about it is that not only that she said that she said no several times but there was a physical response on his part that he had his hands on her neck.

BECKER: Right, because it proves that he -- a, that he knew that she didn't want to go for it, and b, that he went forward by force knowing she didn't want to. That's why I say that by itself is rape.

LIN: Now, you talk -- you talked about eyewitnesses and conflicting testimony from eyewitnesses. One, a night auditor or manager at the resort who saw her shortly after the alleged attack who said that she didn't look agitated at all.

BECKER: Right.

LIN: But her parents and her boyfriend, who did say that night that she did look upset. How would that weigh in the civil case?

BECKER: I think that the woman's testimony of the night clerk who said she didn't look upset will amount to zero because the accuser met the night clerk that day. It makes perfect sense that if you had been raped, you don't tell everybody. You don't tell somebody you just met. You wait and confide in close friends of yours, such as the bellman who she was very close to.

LIN: But some people might argue that you would go running, screaming from the hotel room and you wouldn't care who heard you.

BECKER: But -- well, don't you think some raped woman might be very embarrassed particularly if something that happens at their job. They don't even want to let their employers know they went into the room with Kobe Bryant and set up a situation where something might have happened. So you know -- I mean women react in many ways and I don't think that everyone just tells anyone they know.

LIN: Sure.

BECKER: And particularly since she told others almost immediately there after, I don't see this as particularly inconsistent.

LIN: Well, not only women, but certainly people do react in different ways, you're absolutely right, under stress. So why doesn't Kobe Bryant write this woman a check? I mean has there been word out there that there has at least been an offer of a settlement?

BECKER: Well, look, we know that they talked because there was enough of a deal so that he knew that when he made that apology, the deal was it wouldn't be used against him in a civil case. So we know there's talks going on. We also know that the woman backed out of the criminal case because she didn't want to face the trauma of cross examination and the media. And remember in the criminal case, she was protected by a rape shield statute. When she goes into the civil case, there's no protection from a rape shield statute. There may be some protection, but a much greater portion of her previous sex life may come in. So if she didn't want to testify in the criminal case, I have to believe she wouldn't want to testify in the civil case and must be looking for money.

I don't know that for a fact...

LIN: Right.

BECKER: ...but that's what I conclude from these facts. I predict that in a month or so you'll see the case go away. But if there is a deal, we probably won't know the details because it'll be confidential. But remember, if you look at the Colorado statutes -- I've done some calculations -- I think the most, the best case scenario for this woman, if she won the case, the most damage she should get would be around $2 million, which, to Kobe is peanuts. So maybe he says I'll pay her to make it go away so it doesn't hang over my head for another year and mess up my career or maybe he says, you know, the worst you can do to me is get 2 million so go ahead and prove it. I don't have a down side. I don't know what Kobe thinks but he could think of it either way.

LIN: Rob, how in the world do you come up with a dollar figure based on what?

BECKER: Well, no, first there's a limit in Colorado. It's a very specific number. The most that you can get for pain and suffering, I think it's about $733,000. It used to be 500,000 plus the cost of living. Then you have -- you get to be paid for concrete expenses like paying your lawyers and paying your doctors. Let's say maybe that takes it up to a million...

LIN: I got you.

BECKER: ...then if you have punitive damages, you double it.

LIN: There you go, do the math in a crime case. Thanks very much, Rob. Becker -- Rob Becker, sports attorney.

Let's go to the interior secretary, Gail Norton, about Mount St. Helens and whether it's going to blow.

(JOINED IN PROGRESS)

GAIL NORTON, INTERIOR SECRETARY: ... of course, the devastation that has taken place in the past. What we see today is a new vent hole that has arisen, and some areas of the crater that are beginning to bulge. There are a number of things that are taking place and USGS is monitoring these situations.

The current situation is one that began with monitoring on September 23 as we were beginning to see some changes taking place in the mountain. The seismic activity has been occurring below Mount St. Helens. And this is the most intense that has been observed since 1980 and the explosion at that point. Today -- or yesterday, there was a steam emission, and you have certainly seen the photographs of that. And today, there was also a small steam emission. What we saw today was the beginning of a harmonic tremble. Instead of having the number of small earthquakes that have been taking place, this was a general rumble that took place. It was an ongoing vibration. That has now reverted back to more of the regular earthquake situation that we had been seeing for a few days. It was that change in the seismic activity that caused the USGS to elevate the alert status. And we are now in a level three alert. This is the red level of alert.

The data suggests that ongoing intense earthquake activity has weakened the rock carapacion dome increasing the likelihood of an eruption either in the form of more explosions or perhaps lava flow from the dome. The most likely scenario at this stage are additional small, moderate ash steam eruptions with ash rising as high as tens of thousands of feet. An explosive event like the one yesterday could blast rocks as large as a foot in diameter as much as three miles from the dome, likely in a northward direction. Explosions or eruptions could be accompanied by an outpouring of lava into the 925-foot dome that has been built up in the crater since the eruption in 1980.

The greatest public safety concern at this point is an ash plume and the spread of ash itself. That might come from an explosion. This is a concern for aircraft travel, and that is the primary concern. We are in some ways fortunate with the location because so much of the area around Mount St. Helens is unoccupied; we don't have the danger to surrounding populations that might otherwise occur. So obviously within the three miles around the volcano crater itself there is no one there except an occasional person who might be there studying that. And so, there's no one who would be directly in the line of danger from any projectiles that might come from the volcano.

We do have the possibility that the ash could cover a much larger area. And there are some concerns about respiratory problems and about traffic problems that might be caused because of the obscuring of visibility because of the ash. Overall, again, we are very fortunate that there's no one who lives directly in the area that would be most impacted.

The USGS Cascade Volcano Observatory is continuing to monitor this situation closely. I have been told that this is similar to monitoring and predicting a tornado. We can say that the situation is right but you can't say exactly what is going to happen until something does, indeed happen. I've been impressed by what I've seen with the seismic monitoring that takes place here, the photographic monitoring, the studies that are taking place by the scientists to be able to monitor everything that is going on very closely to get word out immediately as new developments occur.

We have been informed by the Forest Service that the Johnson Ridge Visitor Center has been evacuated. The Cold Water apparently remains open and that is a decision that is made by the Forest Service.

We appreciate the great interest. We are very proud at the Department of the Interior, of the work of the scientists in the U.S. Geological Survey who bring their expertise to the assistance of public safety. Thank you.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Would you like to speak next? Senator Cantwell will speak next.

SEN. MARIA CANTWELL, WASHINGTON: Thank you. I want to thank Secretary Norton for visiting the northwest today and paying particular attention to this issue that is so important to Washingtonians and Oregonians as well. Secretary Norton's agency, the Department of Interior, oversees the USGS. So they are within her agency. And I think it's safe to say that the investment -- excuse me -- by our government in the U.S. Geological Survey is providing great information to all of us in monitoring the events of yesterday, the past several years, and the events that may come in the next following days. So I want to thank the men and women who have been a part of this operation because it is their hard work, their scientific information that is helping the rest of the community plan and prepare for the best outcome, if an event does happen. Their communication is the basis that goes to the state's emergency management team and to various other providers within the community that are working on those issues as air transportation alert, as the secretary said, is a major concern being an event where an ash explosion could be something similar to very high elevations and things that we've seen in the past.

I think it's safe to say Washingtonians remember digging out the ash from streets, the masks on the face of people in Yakama and other parts of the state. I don't think that that's what anybody is expecting here. But we appreciate the hard work and the advance notice that this team of people is giving us so that we can prepare, that people are aware, and that the agencies plan for the important issues of air transportation and other issues of health and safety of our population. So again, thank you Secretary Norton and thank you USGS for the fine work that you do. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We'd like to hear next -- or actually Congressman Brian Baird is going to speak next to us. Thanks.

REP. BRIAN BAIRD, WASHINGTON: I want to echo Senator Cantwell's remarks and welcome Secretary Norton to southwest Washington. We're very proud to have Mount St. Helens here in our backyard. All of us remember -- it's been 25 years ago since Mount St. Helens first erupted. And I look around at faces of people who were maybe an early or mid career, and it was the defining moment of many of our lives. And I want to share and express my appreciation. We should -- people should know that quite literally, around the clock, the scientist, the men and women here, are working around the clock struggling with the data saying what does this latest tremor mean? How do we interpret this series of events? What do we know from past opportunities and what will they teach us about the future?

Public safety today around the mountain depends on their good work. And the material and information they gather from this event will help us save lives and save property in the future. So I want to make sure that we do everything we can in Congress to assure that these good people have all the resources, financial, personnel, equipment, et cetera to do the very, very best job they can do in this immediate event and to help us learn from that event and prepare for future events. So let me express my profound gratitude to folks. And once this event is over, I hope people will come back and visit Mount St. Helens on the 25th anniversary. We're very excited about that. And I thank you all for being here.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And we hope Mount St. Helens will quiet down in time so we can have a 25th anniversary. We'll next hear from Congressman Greg Waldon (ph) from Oregon.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Well, thank you very much. I represent all of eastern Oregon and I'm the chairman of the Subcommittee on Forest and Forest Health. And I wanted to get a firsthand look at what scientists are finding here and I also wanted to make sure Mount St. Helens stays a Washington mountain and doesn't come on over in our direction. But I just want to commend the folks at the USGS...

LIN: Congressional representatives thanking the USGS after interior secretary Gail Norton has given the latest report that the area is on a red alert status. They are expecting more seismic activity, in fact, more lava to flow from the dome at Mount St. Helens sometime in the next 24 hours. The greatest danger right now would be any kind of plume of ash and smoke that would spread from that event, warning of respiratory problems and also there is an air transport alert. Several of the Forest Service members have evacuated the Johnson Bridge Observatory area. All tourists, scientists, everyone have been ordered off the mountain. We are going to have continuing coverage throughout the night and on our primetime show at 10:00 p.m. Eastern.

But right now, I want to talk to Mark Shields and "THE CAPITAL GANG."

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