35 years ago today, Mt St Helens eruption (explosion)

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67Dart273

67Dart273

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Still remember that day. I was in Sandpoint, ID at an airshow. It was either Sat or Sun. "Clouds" were rolling in, and we thought there was "thunder clouds" forming. NO!! It was ash from St. Helens. We got a relatively light coating, but not far west, and west of Spokane, people were plowing and shoveling it.

Google it. Most deadly volcano in U.S. History

One of the victims

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Before and after. Eruption / explosion removed about 2000 vertical feet off the peak summit

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Trees laid down by the force of the blast

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I live in Central Illinois, and I remember we had some pretty strange cloud formations for a while due to all the ash up in the atmosphere. It was really freaky looking, from what I remember. Thanks for the share! I had never seen the picture of the state patrol cars with the jerry-rigged air filters. It's amazing what human ingenuity can come up with when it is required.
 
I remember going up to the mountain not long after the eruption and seeing all the trees for miles fell like domino's. It is an image in my head I will never forget.
 
My sister, her husband and their 3 sons lived in Coeur d'Alene, ID, when Mount St. Helens blew its top. I remember all the worry we had in SoCal for them and the stories they had afterwards.
Ol' Mother Nature can get pretty grouchy at times!
 
Were were up in Washington state,for a family fishing trip. (At the time) Walked out of the motel room one morning, there were huge ash flakes falling from the sky. One of my life's, more surreal moments.
 
Just wait till Yellowstone goes, and makes StHelens look like a sparkler cone from the fourth of July.
 
I live in Southern Alberta. I remember there being a layer of ash on everybody's cars. That is something I won't ever forget. We couldn't believe it could come that far.
 
Mom is a science teacher, and has a vhs video of the all the videos of the people that stayed behind instead of evacuating. At one point, in the video this guy that was providing dialogue of what was happening says, "I think I'm dead." -he falls over and dies. I will never forget that.
 
from what I understand they grossly underestimated the "safe zone". It has been revised since, but I don't think I would trust the new line myself either. I will be GTFO town!


greymouser7 said:
Mom is a science teacher, and has a vhs video of the all the videos of the people that stayed behind instead of evacuating. At one point, in the video this guy that was providing dialogue of what was happening says, "I think I'm dead." -he falls over and dies. I will never forget that.
Click to expand...
 
If I remember correctly, 3 days later the ash was still falling. I think we went to the release of "The Empire Strikes Back" and when we came out from the show, that's when we found our cars covered in ash.
 
I can hardly believe it was so long ago. Jeepers 35 years ago, I was still a kid, making babies. Now I have a grandkid and another arriving in Oct.Where has the time gone. Another 35 and I will just be a memory in the hearts of my kids.
 
I was about 35 air miles from the mountain on duty at McChord AFB when it blew. It was a foggy day so we couldn't see it, and we didn't hear anything until the radio announced the eruption. My dad lived in NW Montana and he heard the explosion. Due to the westerly winds, they had about an inch of ash, while my house north of the mountain only received a dusting. Eastern Washington still had ash drifts more than ten years later.
 
I live in St. Helens, named after Mt. St. Helens, which this town has a clear view of. We were covered in ash ans I watched the mountain blow from the center of town. Google earth gives a good view of how things look now.
 
TrailBeast said:
Just wait till Yellowstone goes, and makes StHelens look like a sparkler cone from the fourth of July.
Click to expand...

X2. Same with Mount Etna in Italy. If they both go at the same time ,there will be a problem.
This would effect everyone in the whole world.


Darryl
 
I was in the Air Force stationed at Ellsworth AFB just outside of Rapid City, S. Dakota. I had a dispatch, the day after it happened, we were going to pull a missile from the tube, so it had to be a weekday, Monday? Anyway, serious overcast, and DUST everywhere! Not heavy accumulation, but you knew it was there. Missile pull cancelled, safety reasons? Something about the dust could cause a static build-up and then discharge? Commanders didn't want to take that chance. There was no nuke on site, it was already gone, so relax. So I maintained an interest in it ever since. There is a website out there that offers a live time view of Mt. St. Helens. Pretty cool! I linked that for anyone to see.

http://www.fs.fed.us/gpnf/volcanocams/msh/
 
I remember it well. It was Sunday Dell . I was out side changing the lawn water around . I kept hearing this low rumble , it sounded like a jet getting ready to take off but it kept going and going. I looked up towards the cascade range and saw this black cloud stretching from one end of the valley to the other North and South. My wife had gone into town and when she got home she had heard St. Helens had blown. On the radio air quality alerts had been set. With in about 45 min of when I first saw the cloud , it was dumping ash on Yakima the town I live in. Yakima is about 120 miles NE of St. Helens and as luck would have it Yakima was the hardest hit with ash . I had about 1' of piled ash around my house from the roof not to mention what was in the yard. A lot of places weren't as lucky as the weight of the ash collapsed several older buildings. It was a real mess for quite a while.
 
I remember it well. Was just coming out of the 10th grade.
 
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