May 18, 1980 "The mountain has blown!"

[gopiscrap]

Today is the 40th anniversary of the eruption of Mount St. Helens. My wife and I were students in Pullman WA 200 miles from the volcano. We got up with a clear beautiful day and went to church. As we left the service, there were clouds on the horizon...this was unusual weather for Pullman. It got darker and darker and we turned on the tv..all channels were knocked off and for the first time in my life, the EBS was in force for real. A young announcer was screaming on tv "The mountain has blown, the mountain has blown!"

With in an hour all the beer and chips in Pullman were gone. It got dark at 1pm and at 2:30 ash was falling ,like snow. We were told not to go out in it but being college students, we did anyway. It felt like walking on powdered snow. It ruined all our vinyl records and the paint job on our car. For the rest of the school year were fighting blowing ash everywhere.

40 days later we were married and left Pullman. A year later we came back and we could still see ash on the side of the highway.

22 months later we went to St. Helen's and were astounded at the destruction. We have been back every two or three years and have marveled at the regeneration taking place.

Any other DU'ers have memories of this famous event?

[madamesilverspurs]

1. Woke up to find a coating of ash on my kitchen counter

...in Colorado.


.

[gopiscrap]

2. Wow!!!

we had about 4 inches by 7pm that evening and 5 the next morning

[shenmue]

3. I saw it on the teevee

I was 7.

[gopiscrap]

6. Holy cow! I'm ancient,

I was 22 at the time...where were living at the time?

[shenmue]

11. I lived in NYC

[BComplex]

13. I was 30. I'm even more ancient!

My roommate at the time was a science reporter working for the Oregonian newspaper, and he had been reporting on the volcano's activities before (and after) it blew. He mailed me a box of the dust.

[gopiscrap]

14. we collected a bunch of ash

and for the children who came to our wedding, we took the labels of off small baby food jars and gave each child a baby food jar full of ash. I just talked to a child (my nephew he was 6 at the time) and he still has that jar of ash some 40 years later.

[question everything]

4. We moved to Portland six months later

I remember flying over it, seeing the flat top and all the trees strewn around like match sticks.

[gopiscrap]

9. where were you living when it blew?

BTW, I love Portland

[question everything]

15. Twin Cities, MN

First of too many moves across the country to end up in... the Twin Cities.

Leaving Portland to Des Moines was heart wrenching. Several days before the move, we visited Victoria and Vancouver and drove home on a clear day to see Mt. Baker, Rainier, and St. Helen in all their glories. Still hearts, and this was 38 years ago!

[gopiscrap]

17. come back, the Northwest is a great place to visit or live

[shockey80]

5. Holy shit, When I wrote my recent post I did not know it was the anniversary of MT Saint Helens.

Weird.

[Olafjoy]

7. Ash on the cars in Oregon

Had to be really careful getting it off as it was like ground glass and it scratched the hell out of everything. Went to visit the area as well. Was absolutely in disbelief at the devastation!! Was such a beautiful forest turned into a grey moonscape with all the trees reduced to knocked over logs like matchsticks.

[gopiscrap]

10. that's what happened

to us, our car was all scratched up...we had to drive in that stuff for another six weeks and it did a serious number on our paint job

[misanthrope]

8. December 1980 in Birmingham, Alabama

We were looking at Christmas trees on the lot and noticed the light grey coating of fine ash on the inner portions of many of the trees. It had made the journey across the country.

[gopiscrap]

12. amazing

I remember from others (we were in Honk Kong at the time) that folks back home had the same experience

[misanthrope]

16. Story in today's Oregonian

https://www.oregonlive.com/pacific-northwest-news/2020/05/mount-st-helens-eruption-witnesses-recall-terror-awe-when-mountain-exploded-40-years-ago.html

[gopiscrap]

18. thanks

[roamer65]

19. Fine ash on our cars in Michigan.

I remember wiping it with my finger and it being dark gray.

[gopiscrap]

23. wow

[roamer65]

24. Was easy to see on my sister's white car.

That’s the car I wiped my finger on. The sky was hazy brownish.

[GreenEyedLefty]

33. Also from Michigan

I don't remember any ash making it all the way here but I do remember spectacular sunsets that summer.

[Reader Rabbit]

20. Full recording of Gerry Martin's last transmission

Gerry was a volunteer ham radio operator. The camper he describes being overwhelmed around 2:07 is that of David Johnston, a scientist whose own last transmission was "Vancouver! Vancouver! This is it!"

[LeftInTX]

21. There was lots of anticipation before the event.

It was much worse than I thought it would be

I was in Wisconsin, but I don't remember any ash.
There might have been, but I didn't notice it. Maybe it rained?
We were always washing our cars anyway.

I just couldn't believe the whole side of the mountain blew out!!!
I was expecting something prolonged and showy, like Hawaii

I now know that there are different types of volcanoes.

[Thomas Hurt]

22. I don't remember hearing about it at the time.

I was about to graduate from high school and head off to college in a few months. I was working nights. My parents didn't mention it that I recall.

I realized it had happened when I was buying books for my first semester. They had some paperbacks full of pictures of the disaster.

Somewhere around mid nineties we drove up to the observatory point. It boggles the mind to think how much earth violently shifted.

[Polybius]

26. I do, and I'm about 10 years younger than you

I was in the 2nd grade and I remember the teacher talking about it.

[Polybius]

25. For some reason MSH gets mentioned 1st when talking about recent volcanoes

Not taking anything away from it, but I just wonder why. Most people don't even remember Mount Pinatubo, which was way bigger.

[gopiscrap]

27. because it was the first eruption in continental US for quite awhile

and it was a vary rare type of eruption, it blew originally sideways and then up, the eruption took off 1300 feet of the mountain. It is considered one of the most volatile volcanoes in the US and even the world.

[Archae]

28. A local tourist group was complaining to the state authorities...

They were demanding the reopening of resorts and campgrounds, because they were losing money.

Two days after the group delivered their demands to the state, the mountain blew.

Sound at all familiar?

[gopiscrap]

29. yup

[canetoad]

30. Reading about it right now

Property owners in the Spirit Lake area, which sat in the Red Zone, increased pressure on authorities to allow them access to the homes they had been forced to leave. Some even threatened to converge on some of the roadblocks in numbers and break through. On May 17, in the shadow of a quiet mountain, law enforcement officers escorted about 50 carloads of property owners into the Red Zone to retrieve their possessions, according to the USGS. The civilians who entered the area were required to sign liability waivers at the roadblocks and were asked to leave by nightfall. Authorities had agreed to escort another group at 10 a.m. the following morning.

https://www.accuweather.com/en/weather-news/40-years-ago-last-moments-before-mount-st-helens-eruption-caught-on-camera/738277

Link to tweet

[Proud Liberal Dem]

36. Somebody shared on my Facebook about a guy named Harry R. Truman (not the former POTUS)

who lived up in the area and owned a resort/lodge and adamantly refused to leave and had become somewhat of a folk hero for refusing to leave who ultimately perished during the eruption when lava buried the area, including his establishment. Based on his Wikipedia entry, he seemed like a proto-Trumper, definitely the same kind of person who would be at these lockdown protests demanding his "freedumb". Based on some of the information contained within the Wikipedia entry, he sounded like a pretty deplorable person in general. It's worth a read, particularly as a cautionary example for what we're going through right now with COVID-19.

[Archae]

37. I remember him...

Cantankerous old coot, could cuss up a storm, and he loved cats, had lots of them.

[JHB]

31. Video from 2017 of some of the debris, wreckage, and buldings 37 years later

Just about all of it off the beaten path.

[I_UndergroundPanther]

32. I have a genuine

Piece of blue obsidian from Mount St.Helens.

Got the teeny sheeny gas bubbles in it..gorgeous
pale greenish aquamarine color. The necklace was a gift from a fellow rockhound friend. Wearing it today. But I didn't know Mount St Helens exploded till I read this thread.

[GreenEyedLefty]

34. My family visited MSH 3 years ago.

I can see why people found it so enchanting. Even in its current state, it is a magical place. So many wildflowers and hummingbirds amid the fallen logs. Incredibly beautiful. The forests replanted on the hillsides in their exact crisscrossing rows are dizzying to look at.

[gopiscrap]

35. It is beautiful

where are you from

[GreenEyedLefty]

38. Michigan.

MSH was part of a 2 week vacation. We flew into Phoenix, rented a car then drove into California visiting every national park and monument we could from Joshua Tree to Olympic. We flew home from Seattle.

[gopiscrap]

39. that is very cool

I love Michigan's UP I spent 5 weeks up there singing at Lutheran Churches in Escanaba, Gwinn, Ishpeming, Bergland, Merriweather, Ontanogan etc I loved it. BTW your Governor rocks!!!