40 years ago today around 8:30 in the morning I was drinking coffee on the porch of a house I was renting in Bend, Oregon when I heard a muffled "boom". Turns out it was Mt. St. Helens, 153 miles to the north, blowing its top.
At that time the Bend sewer project was underway and it wasn't uncommon to hear explosives being set off throughout the west side of town to blast trenches for the sewer line. But May 18, 1980 was a Sunday and they weren't working on weekends. My roommates and I thought it was odd... maybe they they just started doing weekend work to keep the project on schedule??ÿ It was an hour or two later that word came that St. Helens had erupted about 8:30. I think some kid walking by the house told us.
This was a big event in the Pacific Northwest and most everyone here abouts can recall what they were doing that morning. What's funny is that we all heard the news about the eruption later in the day. It's amazing how quaint and unplugged we were back then.
While I heard the blast from 150+ miles away, my folks lived only 43 miles from St. Helens up on Hayden Island in Portland and they didn't hear the blast... some weird acoustical anomaly I suppose.
some weird acoustical anomaly I suppose
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I heard that the blast blew out windows in Vancouver BC, but no damage like that was seen in Seattle.
I was working in Eastern Nebraska at the time. A little ash covered the area, after a few days, nothing like what folks up here went through.
I visited the north side of the mountain in the mid 90's and the sides of the road still had big piles of ash.
Abbotsford, British Columbia. I worked nights in those days, in a restaurant, and was asleep at the critical moment. Others who weren't reported hearing the boom.
I was packing to leave OK to head back down to so. Louisiana and the Atchafalaya.?ÿ The kids and my wife were at church.?ÿ A neighbor stopped by to return a lawn mower and he had heard it on the AM radio.
The next issue of National Geographic had a large detailed account.?ÿ I could not fathom the force required to put that much material into the air in less than a second.?ÿ It still boggles my mind.
Tacoma.?ÿ My sister was trying to wake us all up so we could go watch.?ÿ Not our finest moment.?ÿ Ended up in Packwood, not able to see 30 feet from the vehicle, driving on slippery ash covered roads with fellow people that didn't think it through
Somewhere in Washington State on vacation, can't remember exactly where, but close to I-5. I believe we had recently left Battleground Lake and were heading north to Canada. We were standing outside a McDonald's having lunch and watching it. I was 16. I find myself (now) wondering WTF we were thinking, just standing there watching it.
The entrepreneur in me caused the need to fill a large garbage bag full of ash on the way back headed south. I got it home, began filling canning jars with ash, then taped labels to the outside with a date and a hand-drawing of Mt. St. Helens. At our next yard sale, I made a killing on those things. LOL
I was in central WA. Me and my sister where staying with my grandparents because the parents were out of town in Yakima at a softball tournament.?ÿ It was a hot clear May day, i remember it like it was yesterday.?ÿ We did not hear the explosion but we were in the direct path of the ash plume.?ÿ We could see it coming on the horizon and within a hour it was pitch black at noon and the ash was falling.?ÿ ?ÿI remember my dad telling me he woke up late (something about a late night softball celebration) and it was still dark out so he thought it was still very early and went back to bed, it was 10am!?ÿ My parents were stuck there for almost a week if I recall.
I was 2, and probably in my Mom's lap or sleeping in the pew at church in Kentucky.
Olympia, WA. As with many such events I slept through it. I am a sound sleeper.
I lived in a rented cabin in North City (Seattle) that was made out of plywood and perched on what now would be a regulated slope. Whenever the ground shook so did the house so at 8 or so in the morning this was nothing out of the ordinary.?ÿ That house, cool as it was, is now sadly gone.?ÿ?ÿ
Those were tenuous days. The firm I was working for had a crew in the Cascades running section lines for the Forest Service. Thankfully they were home for the weekend and stayed out of the woods for a few weeks.?ÿ?ÿ
Damn, that was 40 years ago.?ÿ
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I was on the downside of my 3 yr stint with Uncle Sam in Augsburg, Germany (Home in upstate NY in June that year). A few days later one of our sergeants joked about the pollen that was covering the cars being volcanic ash. My mother and her husband were in San Francisco and decided to make the side trip to visit my uncle who at the time lived in Aurora, OR she told me they could see the plume, although I think it was several days after the blast. When we were visiting same uncle in '96 (I think, Cup of Joe can correct me if I'm wrong) we went to the site, pretty awesome for 10 plus years later, and vegetation seemed to just be reappearing.
As an aside, on our way there we stopped at a small store on the shore of a lake South of the Mountain. They had a small gift area, part of which had sculptures and such made by a local artist from the ash, one of these pieces, that I and others had wished we got, was a salt & pepper set that was in the shape of the pre-blast mountain, the salt shaker top came off and the bottom portion was the post blast mountain. The lady running the place said she didn't hear the blast.?ÿ
In Florida running errands........
Stanfield, Oregon, 1 year old.
I was far enough away from there that it made no impression on me, I guess.?ÿ At 10:30 a.m., local time, on a Sunday morning in mid-May I was probably firing up the little self-propelled lawn mower to attempt to mow the two acres of lawn around our rented old farm house and outbuildings.?ÿ Fairly certain the 7 month-old did not appreciate the noise interrupting her slumber.?ÿ Quite possible I knew nothing about it until that evening or possibly the next day at work.
I was working in Greeneville Tennessee running seismograph lines. We worked 10 days, off 4 days. I don't remember if I was on the 10 or the 4. I had been there since March 25 and didn't have a TV. I probably had no idea what had happened and hadn't seen a TV in a couple of months.
On the 4 days off I usually caught up on mapping for a couple of days and rode around the Smokey Mountains and Gatlinburg for a day or two.
James
A year later, spring of 1981, I was surveying for seismic exploration too. Mainly in the Rocky Mountains with a little bit of work in Texas, Oklahoma and Ohio.
I visited several years after it happened, early 90??s, and you could still see the devastation. ?ÿI live in Illinois and I remember spectacular sunsets for several weeks because of the ash in the atmosphere. ?ÿ
hmmm?ÿ I was 11, so I guess finishing up 5th grade??ÿ ?ÿ
I had graduated College the beginning of the month and had just started working for the Department of Defense at West Point NY.
I had spent the last summer working for the US Forest Service in Chiloquin, OR and my boss had worked for Weyerhaeuser in Oregon. We both followed the stories in the news.
I was 6 days away from my high school graduation and remember having to sweep off all the ash of the cars in the driveway and windows of our home south of Denver.?ÿ
