Many of my relatives lived in rural Washington, so the the earth-shaking eruption of the Mount Saint Helen's volcano forty years ago at 8:32 am on May 18, 1980 was a huge event for our family.
Post-eruption, my relatives even began referring to the places they lived in as "x many air miles from Mt. St. Helen's". My grandpaernts lived 30 air miles away.
As the eruption occurred before the Internet and cellular phones, (and we were not in the habit of watching the news), we didn't know about it until I came home from school that afternoon. Then there were numerous urgent calls to my grandmother, aunt, and multiple cousins checking that everyone was safe. It sometimes took hours to get through-nothing was worse than the anxiety provoked by a near-constant busy signal.
The stories that emerged were "end of times" horrifying. My cousin said one needed to stay inside as the air itself was black and thick with ash, sickening people quickly and making driving near impossible. Amidst the black smoke, people watched for hot embers landing and ran to water down debris, brush and roofs on fire. No one had exterior cameras to monitor things. People relied on neighbors or going outside periodicially. It all smelled like fire and ash, so it was difficult to discern if something near one was actually on fire.
Almost everyone we were related to knew someone who died, was injured or sustained damage to their home or property from the Mt. St. Helen's volcanic eruption.
Forty years later it's interesting to hear stories from people who survived as to where they were and what they experienced at 8:32 am on May 18, 1980 when Mt. St. Helen's Blew.
When Mount St. Helens erupted in the state of Washington, the natural disaster killed 57 people and caused $3 billion in damage.
While it's remembered as “the day the volcano blew”, the volcano had many earthquakes and rumblings prior to the May 18 event. The actual trigger was a massive debris avalanche triggered by an earthquake measuring 5.1 on the Richter scale. The resulting eruption reduced the elevation of the mountain's summit by more than 10 percent--from 9,677 feet to 8,365 feet, replacing it with a 1-mile-wide horseshoe-shaped crater. The eruption itself lasted more than 9 hours and fallout was found as far as Canada and Idaho.
As a result, the Mount St. Helens National Volcanic Monument was created to both preserve the volcano and allow scientists to study it.
Image courtesy of the Mount St. Helens National Volcanic Monument.
Thanks for reading “Where Were You at 8:32 am on May 18, 1980 When Mt. St. Helen's Blew?”
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