Mount St Helens - 30 Years ago

[firebug]

Most of CP will probably not remember this, but the 1st (the big one) modern eruption occurred 30 years ago today.

Boston's Big Picture Overview

National Geographic on the Recovery

Video on 'Folk Hero' Harry Truman - Old codger who refused to leave the mountain and perished in the eruption.

I was 5 when this occurred, and can remember looking for ash on the cars parked outside every morning.

Also found a recording I made on audio cassette describing the events. It was fun to listen to.

~bug

[photon]

Yeah I was a kid too, and I remember this. I lived in southern Alberta and I seem to remember large piles of ash on cars and stuff.

[Pinner]

Good find Bug

[CaptainCrunch]

I remember that the sky was really colorful for a while after the eruption. And I remember seeing ash on cars.

[T@T]

I arrived in Calgary exactly 1 year after, at my uncles building there was still ash in an old cellar entrance.

I just saw a show last week and the scientists think it could be building up to another eruption in the near future, what was really amazing was how life returned to the area in such a short time, the lake at the summit was completely dead and they thought it could take 30-40 years for it to return to normal but it took 2 years.

[drewboy12]

one of the coolest places Ive visited to see the destruction "at the time" almost 25 years later was impressive.

[Sylvanfan]

Yeah lived in Medicine Hat at the time and I remember my dad who at the time was an Insurance adjuster was doing insurance claims afterwards. We moved to Cranbrook a year later or so and I remember some type of saying when we were kids about it's going to blow up like Mount St. Helens.

[darockwilder]

I was living in Prince George when it happened and I remember afterwards people were always excited to get a vial of "Mt. St. Helen's Ash". I suppose they could have come from a Players Light or a du Maurier for all I knew.

[Stumptown]

As you can probably imagine, the anniversary is a pretty big deal here in Portland. I didn't live here at the time (I was actually overseas) but the legacy is ever present. My husband does renovations, and even a few years ago he would still find mounds of ash in eaves and gutters. I was pretty excited back in '04 when it started erupting again. It didn't do too much () this time, but it was still a little scary. Even just a week ago it sent off some steam, but I think that was probably just a little glacier hitting the hotspot on the dome, and not anything really new. It's interesting living so close to a dangerously active volcano, and another one that's technically active, but hasn't done much since Europeans have been in the area. There's also possibly a new volcano forming in central Oregon (right now it's just "the bulge") that folks around Bend are a little worried about.

As a bit of a counterpoint to the link about Harry Truman - David Johnston was the geologist who really sounded the warnings about the pending eruption, died in the eruption, and now has the visitor's center named after him.

I remember my mom being freaked out because my parents lived in Tacoma.
At that age, I was stoked that I got an old spice jar of the "ash".