People started calling 911 in south Washington State last week because of a weird smell—and for once, it wasn’t the Portland Saturday Market. The emergency calls started coming in at about 6:30 p.m. on Tuesday in the town of Kelso, which is north of Portland/Vancouver.
The smell, which still hasn’t been identified by emergency officials, drifted across Cowlitz County for almost 12 hours until it reached Portland. A change in the wind direction at 4 a.m. the next morning then caused the smell to drift back north into Washington State.
911 calls were coming in from the towns of Kelso, Rose Valley, Kalama, Woodland, and eastern Columbia County, OR. Emergency officials have several theories about what it might have been but still haven’t been able to verify anything.
It could have been some kind of chemical spill from a train, ship, or truck, but if that’s the case, they can’t figure out where the spill happened. A pipeline or natural gas leak is another possibility, although they would have located that by now.
Another possibility is that Mount St. Helens may have awakened again. Back on May 18, 1980, the mountain blew up in the most devastating volcanic eruption in recorded history in America. In the leadup to that eruption, earthquakes and shifting grounds released gases from the earth and people started reporting weird smells in the area.
If you think about it, a massive volcano erupting would be the perfect end to the Biden-Harris administration’s time in office. What’s one more disaster at this point?
Some people reported minor health problems from the weird smell that wafted across the region. Officials are still trying to identify the source.
