36 years ago today

[killdeer43]

A quiet Sunday morning was interrupted by a very loud explosion that was followed shortly by another equally loud blast. It woke me the first time and had me out on the street with all my neighbors after the second.
Only after we heard the news on the radio did we know what had happened.

Mt. St. Helens, WA, May 18, 1980

I was 200 miles to the northwest at the time and after stories trickled in, we realized that the top of the mountain was gone.

Everyone up here has their own story to tell. :hororr:

Joe

 

[silverfox103]

Everyone does have a story Joe.

We were living in Portland OR on that day. Not very far from that mountain, I'm guessing maybe 35 miles. When Mt. St. Helens blew we felt nothing. I believe the ash blew east and maybe north also. We got no ash at all, but we could see the ash bellowing out. My father in law lived in Othello WA. At noon time, it was pitch black and he barely could breath. My sister in law, who lives in Blaine WA on the Canadian border, probably about 35 miles from Joe, said it was like a nuclear explosion when the mountain blew. I figured we felt nothing because we were so close, and by the time it radiated out up north it was really powerful.

On a side note, a couple of weeks previous, we bought a canoe and went canoeing on Spirit Lake, home of the late Harry Truman (not the president). He was an old timer who refused to move when warned of the danger. He has not been seen for 36 years and I don't believe Spirit Lake has either.

Thanks for the memories Joe!

Tom

 

[silverfox103]

Joe, I can't believe I'm the only one who posted. As you know that was a huge story every night on the news, for what seems like months leading up to the eruption. I know last year when you posted there was about the same response. But, after I thought about it and did the math, 36 years ago and probably kids that were 10 and younger when it happened, are not going to remember. So, anyone 46 and younger on the forum, probably has no recollection of the event. Looks like you and I were the only ones there when it happened.

Tom

 

[geoguy]

Well . . . I certainly remember it, but I was located across the country at the time.

I do recall my then-employer having the motor in a work-truck ruined by that abrasive ash.

They also brought back pails of that ash to put in little vials, to be given to clients (or prospective clients). Earth science geeks are like that. :friendly_wink:

 

[killdeer43]

The day before the eruption, a fiberglass-boat-building plant down on the waterfront burned and there was still a fully-loaded rail car of highly flammable liquid next to the plant. The fire department was hosing it down continually until the heat from the fire cooled down.

I first thought that the explosion that rocked me out of bed on that Sunday morning was the rail car. That blast and the one that followed came from the same direction to the south, and there's no way I/we would have thought that it could possibly have come from Mt. St. Helens....200 miles away!

The ensuing ash fallout over the eastern part of the state was monumental, and to a friend who lived in Pullman at the time, it was "downright apocalyptic." Made for an interesting summer.

From Morton, WA, that fall, I climbed a ridge north of the mountain and looked into the gaping maw of the crater....it was still steaming. Again, the overall scale of the event was/is difficult to comprehend.

Joe

 

[Neal]

And, just imagine... MSH was a tiny fraction of the explosive power unleashed at Krakatoa in 1883 and at Tambora in 1815, which produce the "Year Without Summer". And those were even less cataclysmic that the creation of Crater Lake in 5000 BC.

But the grand-daddy of them all lies under present-day Yellowstone, a super-caldera that, in the past, has been responsible for reducing entire mountain ranges to dust. It is overdue for eruption and is causing uplift within the entire Yellowstone basin. If it were to go, all bets on modern humanity are off.

 

[killdeer43]

If it were to go, all bets on modern humanity are off.

There would be no more summer crowds in Yellowstone....or anything else for that matter. It would be cataclysmic, to say the least. :hororr:

Joe

 

[adorshki]

If it were to go, all bets on modern humanity are off.

Given the current odds, I wouldn't be betting on 'em in the first place.
Tom, I think that unless you were there or very close, for most of us, even though we're awed by the power of nature, it just didn't hit "close enough to home" to generate memorable anecdotes.
I don't remember what I was doing when the news hit, for example.
Probably just heard about it "around the office watercooler".
We didn't have 24-hour TV news channels back then either, so the "impact" was diluted although now I CAN recall the extensive coverage afterwards.
Now the Loma Prieta quake of '89 on the other hand, is a lot more vivid in memory, having been there when it happened....

 

[Neal]

The last Yellowstone eruption, over 600,000 years ago, spread a huge ejecta plume over most of the western half of the United States, covering some areas in over 600 feet of hot ash. Ash beds from that eruption have been found as far east as Missouri, as far south as Louisiana, and as far west as Southern California, dwarfing the ash coverage from MSH.

 

[JohnW63]

I remember it well enough. I think the pastor of our church had moved up to the region and after the eruption was flying people around the plume cloud, and his plane went down. Never heard what happened.

 

[Bikerdoc]

I was commenting on how long it had been since the eruption and how it still seems like yesterday. Amazing too how nature makes it's way back isn't it