I saw that NBC Nightly News did a story on Mount St. Helens last night.
I take back my prior criticisms of the USGS et al for being too slow to report actual danger. Now if they would be so forthcoming about Rainier I'd feel better. This change in alert level is good - better safe than sorry. (I'm really glad to hear the downwind report takes the ash cloud into the unpopulated areas of the Cascades instead of up here to my area.)