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Post up your pics/recollections if you were in Washington.
That the one they made a movie about with Pearce Bronson?
Was in Wilsonville a couple of years back talking to a guy that was in the area the day it blew.

He said traffic just stopped on the interstate and people got out of their cars to watch
I was stationed at Fairchild AFB at the time and we had an airshow going on that weekend. We had to get all the aircraft launched out of there before the ash hit us, we got all the of them out except for one which was an SR-71 that we hangered until we could get the ash cleaned up. It was pretty ominous watching that stuff fall like snow and we spent that next week clearing the airfield of it. We would work in 3 hour shifts with enough crews to work around the clock and it rained that week which made the cleanup even tougher but we got it done.
I was 10 years old and watching it on tv. I remember being very interested especially in the old guy Harry Truman that would not leave and wondering what happened to him. A couple of weeks later a relative brought me a baby food jar filled with Mt. St Helens ash. I kept it on my shelf for many years.
RIP David Johnston.
I was living in Eugene, Oregon at the time. The blasts shook my bedroom window hard enough to wake me up. About 170 miles away.
We were living in the Tri-Cities. Wife was 8 months pregnant and we had a motorcycle outing planned. Sky got dark and we canceled the bike ride and went to a car show instead.

Owners were not happy about that "stuff" falling on their cars.

We didn't hear until about 9:30 what had happened, and then no one knew what to expect in the way of fallout.
Originally Posted by TnBigBore
I was 10 years old and watching it on tv. I remember being very interested especially in the old guy Harry Truman that would not leave and wondering what happened to him. A couple of weeks later a relative brought me a baby food jar filled with Mt. St Helens ash. I kept it on my shelf for many years.
He apparently had a death wish. I did feel sorry for his cats, though. I guess he figured 'it can't happen to me'. I just hope he died quick instead of slowly cooking to death. There are still people around who think Pres. Harry Truman died up there.
I have recently become fascinated with a YouTube channel called GeologyHub which reports on volcanoes, impact craters, and other geology stuff. It says there are now 51 active volcanoes on the planet, with a couple others ready to blow - some very large and dangerous.
I was at the dump that Sunday morning, and the sky turned pitch black. Only had an AM radio in the pickup, had no idea what was up.

That ash was so hard on farm equipment for the next couple of years. Augers, feeder spouts, concaves, rub bars, plow bottoms, etc. Anything that came into contact with that abrasive ash wore out many times sooner than normal.

There were several towns like Ritzville that used snowplows to pile that stuff up. I don't know if any of those piles are still around, but I recall they were massive.

Plugged up air filters like crazy too.
The Yellowstone volcano will be epic when it pops off.
We lived in Quincy and got a couple inches (as I recall). It was my senior year and I was in church. My church class was in the basement and one of the leaders came in and said "do you boys believe in the end of the world?" then he opened the curtain covering the basement window and it was dark outside. I was feeling pretty religious for a few seconds until he said "nah, St. Helens erupted and you all need to go home". I don't remember if it was 1 or 2 days later but when I woke and the sky was blue I took a ride around town on my dirt bike. There was a bunch of hoopla about the "toxic ash" but it turned out that the crops grew better than ever. The people who lived across the street must have had a really well stocked liquor cabinet because they had a volcano party that lasted for days. Those who ran out to cover their cars got bad news when they took the covers off, the ash between the cover and car sanded the paint off.
Originally Posted by gonehuntin
The Yellowstone volcano will be epic when it pops off.


I think I'm in the predicted 1000mm of ash area for that one.
I'm waiting for son of Krakeoa.
I live in the exact centre of the continent and I remember the gorgeous sunsets all Summer long. Also the next 2 unbearably cold winters that followed.
I hear if Yellowstone blows won’t be any of us around to talk about it.
That's assuming it blew full force. It would be much better if it just leaked off pressure for a few years. St Helen's didn't leak enough.
Wow.... 42 years ago... geez.
It was a sunny Sunday morning and I was outside with grandpa waiting for grandma to be ready for church when we heard the boom. The ash was blown away from us so it took a week or so for it to make it around the earth before we got some ash.

My buddy was friends with Harry Truman’s grandson and they traded a couple guns years back. Turns out that he has one of Harry’s old rifles that he traded the grandson out of.
I was skiing at Lake Billy Chinook that morning. We heard the booms, thought they were sonic booms from a jet.
Didn't know what happened until we got home that afternoon and saw the news.
I was stationed at Ft Lewis/ Madigan AMC in 77 and 78, and left Washington in early 1979...

In the service, some of the guys from the barracks use to go out on a weekend hike and camping trip...

Mt St Helens was a popular place for us...

Was living in Minnesota when it blew.... of course we had fall out from it but not like the Pacific NW...

we use to hike/climb up the mountain on weekends down there, it was a relative easy hike...

after it blew it was hard to believe that the mountain was 1300 feet shorter than it was in 77 and 78.
We lived in Salem at the time and were outside washing our cars when it blew. Heard the boom and thought it was a sonic boom. I remember cleaning ash out of the gutter later on. It was quite the chore. Went to a Trans Am race in Portland about 3 weeks later and it was tough on everyone. Any time a car went off track big plumes of ash wafted over the track and the spectators. The cars were running max air filters as the ash was very abrasive.
i remember that whole summer was pretty hazy
Being a flatlander from Kansas, I found the various visitor centers around/at Mt St Helens to be very good in telling the history. Spent the day there a couple years ago with time to kill on a work trip.
I was out on a tractor loading silage when I saw the darkness to the west. Thought I was going to get rained on but when I started brushing sand off my pants I quickly figured out what was going on. We pretty much lucked out because the edge of the cloud was only a mile to the south.

And yeah, that stuff was hell on equipment for the rest of the summer.

It settled on all the hay that was ready to cut so we washed it off with the sprinklers but that didn't stop the plume of dust from raising up in front of the swather and chopper.
We have a fair number of volcanoes out our back door that should they blow will make St. Helens look like child’s play. Mt. Rainier is a serious threat but Glacier Peak which I look at almost daily from my place is the one that I worry about.
Yep. That was the end of first grade for me. School was canceled for the remainder of the year. Spent about the next month indoors.
About a month before I graduated High School. I remember it very clearly. Still seems like a recent current event to me, though, rather than a thing of history.
Spent the morning on Moses Lake shooting carp with bows... Upside down thunderheads came from the SW and the lights went out. I had to wait several days to get back to school in Ellensburg. Had to drive north on back roads. Went to western WA soon after and got stuck in a later blow near Port Townsend.
Originally Posted by nash22
I was skiing at Lake Billy Chinook that morning. We heard the booms, thought they were sonic booms from a jet.
Didn't know what happened until we got home that afternoon and saw the news.

Is this you?
[img]https://preview.redd.it/eswsql4yma0...97d4fc1a6c93734371996e2a7357b119646da947[/img]
Originally Posted by stomatador
Originally Posted by gonehuntin
The Yellowstone volcano will be epic when it pops off.


I think I'm in the predicted 1000mm of ash area for that one.
I wouldn’t complain too hard…
3, maybe 4 days later - the ash fell on us.
Building condos at Los Alamos, NM.
Sure screwed up the painters.
I was stationed at Ft. Lewis also then, B2/75. I was there '78-'81. Don't recall exactly what I was doing that weekend, but some of our dudes were in the south Ranier training area and had to cover up with panchos. It was a wild thing, for sure.
Gonehuntin: You asked for it.
My older brother asked a favor of me - to move his large sailboat from Lake Pend Oreille in northern Idaho to his new moorage near his new residence in Tacoma, Washington.
Off we go on Saturday afternoon to meet the crane which was to lift his sailboat out of the water and onto his large rented ($125.00 a day!) boat trailer which was now attached to my first VarmintMobile.
At the crack of dawn Sunday morning we met the crane got the large sailboat loaded and headed west to Tacoma on I-90 - we didn't get far!
We had no idea (radios off) that Mt St Helens had blown.
The ash cloud was tremendous (60,000' high!) and coming at us - we thought it was an incredible thunderstorm. Soon the heavy ash was upon us and visibility was down to 25'.
We turn on the radio and find out the volcano had blown and I-90 was closed!
We crawl off the freeway in 6" of ash and again no visibility.
LUCKILY we had taken an exit in downtown Spokane and ended up in a parking lot of a hotel.
We park and try to use the hotels phones (this was before cell phones) - no luck, the ash had shut down the phone lines throughout the eastern part of the state (taxington).
The street signals quit working and it was to dangerous to drive anyway so we thought we would get a room at the hotel.
We got the last room (for one night - we were hoping) and it was the "Honeymoon Suite"!
No problem, for one night, we thought.
Food service was then shut down in the hotel and it was deemed to unsafe to walk to a restaurant. We were distraught thinking our families back in the Seattle area were dead! The ash in Spokane was now going on 10" deep - and heavy! Nothing was running - planes, trains, automobiles - nothing.
Well the bar was open in the daylight so we had a few warm beers - power was going on and off!
The hotel was FULL of hungry angry worried drunk people.
I was due back to my law enforcement job on Monday - not to be - on Wednesday still no phone service but word had gotten through that Seattle and Tacoma and our families were safe!
Thank God.
The hotel has now run out of liquor to go along with no food service!
The ladies bowling tournament teams had the WHOLE floor below ours rented out and they were becoming aggressively sexually active to any lone male in the hotel - many of them had been reduced to running around in their undergarments - only a few were worth engaging though.
On Thursday the ash was near 18" deep on the level and still no trains, planes or automobiles allowed to move!
On Friday the phone service came back and one of the bowling babes who had befriended us relayed how one of her teammates had "run" the roadblocks and headed straight north from Spokane toward Canada and then headed west on Highway 2 and made it to home to Bellingham, Washington from Spokane!
We were running up $300.00 a day (lot of money back then) in rents and room service, black market surgical masks etc - plus our works were not happy with we being AWOL.
Frustration had set in - BIG TIME.
Saturday morning at 0500 hours we made our breakout move!
I "borrowed" a silk pillowcase from our room and I tied it around my Ford F-250's oil bath air filter to try and keep the ash out of the engine. As we headed north and around the roadblocks we encountered MANY, MANY dozens of burned out abandoned vehicles who's engines had apparently over-heated - many vehicles were burned out - a few still on fire!
We plugged along in 4WD through the nearly knee deep ash.
Finally after 90 or 100 miles we started to come out of the deep volcanic ash!
Thank God.
I eventually was able to remove the silk pillowcase from my oil bath air filter - and we thanked our lucky stars that I had filled up the first VarmintMobile with gas while we were waiting for the crane at Lake Pend Oreille - no gas stations were pumping.
Our route took us way out of our normal route and once over Cascade Pass on Highway 2 we were amazed at the absolute lack of ash.
The boat was offloaded at Pt. Defiance Marina in Tacoma and exhausted, hungry, worried and out from under the daily rentals we went home and ate and crashed!
I do NOT want to be around another volcanic eruption EVER.
Sadly we later learned many people had been killed in that eruption and its aftermath.
Hold into the wind
VarmintGuy
Wasn't in WA, but rather over in ID. I was finishing up my undergrad at the UofI and the morning was great. Clear and visibility unlimited, cool without being cold, and calm. A great day for spring bear hunting. I was out east of Moscow north of Troy and spotted a good bear a longish distance away at the edge of a natural meadow that was bordered by an older selective cut stand. There was a slight breeze from the SW so I carefully went up through the trees on the ENE side of the meadow. I was in no hurry and was enjoying the day. With my M99 .30-30, I needed to get within 100 yards, but this was going to be almost too easy. There was a big black cloud gathering on the western horizon, which is where Moscow's crappy weather came from, but the breeze hadn't increased, so I still had at least an hour before things got wet. I was about 175 yards away when the bear stood up stared around it and took off for parts unknown. I knew it wasn't me that spooked it and I looked around. That cloud had gotten closer, a lot closer, but there was still no wind. Then dust started coming out if the sky and it got darker and darker, fast. I didn't know what it was but I trust the much finer senses of animals better than my own, so I walked back to my truck. I never go anywhere in the bush without a flashlight, and I needed it.
My truck was an old '69 F150 -- the last year of the real work truck, so it had a manual choke and throttle, oil bath air cleaner, etc. But the radio was broken and had been for several years. I drove home wondering if the silly buggers had finally started tossing the big ones. Because of the oil bath air cleaner and other work adaptations, the truck didn't suffer at all.
RB
Originally Posted by ironbender
RIP David Johnston.

RIP Sir.

We went to the Johnston Ridge Observatory late 2018. Fabulous. I was in first year University in 1980, I majored in Geology and that's what I do. Not Volcanology.

Guide talking about the eruption lived Vancouver Wa and saw te eruptions in the '90's.

Was very sobering to stand at the edge of the hot zone and be so far from the volcano.
Enjoyed that story, RB.
We were in Seattle and my wife had just had our first born a week before, on mothers day. The day the volcano blew it was just another day and I didn't know about it until I turned on the news. The second eruption I watched out the back window of a Seattle city bus on my way home from school. How can it be 42 years later?
No pictures but I remember it quite well. Too bad it didn't explode the entire state to melt everything through Oregon and California. The Smart ones would have known to leave in the dumbasses would have embraced the environment
The ash was hell on saw chains 25 years later. Depending on where you were in northwest Oregon some areas got quite a bit and the shiit was in the bark and washed down to the base of the tree. The Maples seemed to be the worst.
Originally Posted by rockdoc
Originally Posted by ironbender
RIP David Johnston.

RIP Sir.

We went to the Johnston Ridge Observatory late 2018. Fabulous. I was in first year University in 1980, I majored in Geology and that's what I do. Not Volcanology.

Guide talking about the eruption lived Vancouver Wa and saw te eruptions in the '90's.

Was very sobering to stand at the edge of the hot zone and be so far from the volcano.
I met David I believe in 1979. He was up in Fairbanks visiting his best friend, my UAF neighbor, Doug Lalla. Both were geophys grad students; Doug at UAF and David at UW.

Both were big time runners. David was a very nice guy, quick with a laugh, and very smart. Fun guy to drink a beer with and chat.
Originally Posted by Morewood
Originally Posted by nash22
I was skiing at Lake Billy Chinook that morning. We heard the booms, thought they were sonic booms from a jet.
Didn't know what happened until we got home that afternoon and saw the news.

Is this you?
[img]https://preview.redd.it/eswsql4yma0...97d4fc1a6c93734371996e2a7357b119646da947[/img]

I wish I was that Good.
The audio/video sync is not very good, but there are some good clips, especially near the end.

I was camping with my future wife and in laws at Oak harbour, the in laws were from holland and having lived through the war they thought it was the ayatollah attacking, scared the mother in law really bad.
Wasn't in Washington in 1980 but I was in NYC in 9/11
Was 10.
I remember seeing them plowing ash on the news.
Adults talked about it, much of it meant nothing to me.
I don't recall any effect here at all.
May have been, but a 10 year old has more important things
going on than a volcano!
I had just built a new wooden fence in Edmonds WA when I heard someone smash into the fence.

But I could not spot them, looking over the fence.

A few minutes later I heard them smash into my fence again, and again I could not spot them.


Later I learned those sounds were Mt St Helens blowing up.

I had 5 acres in Snohomish that got 0.1" of ash on the leaves of the trees.

Some guy at work gave me a jar of ash from Yakima. The plume around me in Western WA was small, but it went big to the East.

The wife bought face masks, but we never needed them in Western WA.
Maybe 5 years after St Helens, I was in north Idaho hunting elk with my BIL. We could shake the trees and still get ash falling on us. The wind and rain hadn't cleared it off yet.
I had been out rather late on that Saturday night and was in a very hung over state when I awoke early Sunday morning to a bright sun shinny Sunday morning. I went to the bathroom and returned to my bed and went back to sleep. The next time I awoke it was dark in my bedroom and I thought to myself that I had slept all day. My cousin and I had a couple months earlier had purchased some commercial grade newfangled things called Satellite dishes that were the size of a miny home. I got out of bed and turned my TV on and the news channel I was on was showing me a picture of a boiling cloud that I could not make out what it was. Pretty soon the announcer said you are looking at live footage of Mt. St. Helens that has erupted. I stepped outside and it had not started dropping ash yet and I lived in the bottom of a big draw, I got in my pickup and drove up the road to my cousins house that was at a higher elevation. I drove into their place as the ash was beginning to fall. We watched the TV and at that time they were announcing that people should not drive in the ash because they did not know exactly what it was and also do not wash off the ash with water because they did not know if it was caustic or not. I stayed there a couple hours and decided to drive back to my place and hole up until something was decided. I carefully drove back to my house and as I was walking in the door my phone was ringing and it was my girl friend telling me that she was stuck in Colfax because the roads were closed. She had got the last Motel room in Colfax and they were forcing every one else to the school. She was stuck there for about 4 days before they let her go on to Spokane.

Over the next couple years farming sucked because all the ash would swirl around and wear out parts much faster than it should have and we would have to clean the air cleaners several times a day. If you know where to look you can still see piles of ash along I90 around Ritzville and the surrounding areas all the way to Spokane. Shows exactly what mother nature can do when she gets pissed.
Quote
Shows exactly what mother nature can do when she gets pissed
Yes, and this one was fairly minor in terms of volcanoes. There weren't any cities on it's slopes and it was in a fairly remote location. When Krakatoa blew, it was heard 1900 miles away and it took 3 years for the air to clear. They're still excavating the remains of Vesuvius 2000 years later. I don't know how many volcano islands there are with people living literally on top of them.
If Rainier ever blows, it'll be a whole different story.
If you look around there is a Documentary about what will happen if Rainier blows. The dream of everyone in Eastern Washington, because according to the Documentary Seattle, Tacoma, and the rest of those areas will be washed into the sound.
Originally Posted by BluMtn
If you look around there is a Documentary about what will happen if Rainier blows. The dream of everyone in Eastern Washington, because according to the Documentary Seattle, Tacoma, and the rest of those areas will be washed into the sound.

Not only does Eastern WA hate Western WA, but...

Eastern OR hates Western OR.

Conservatives in Western WA hate liberals in Western WA

Eastern King county WA hates Western King county WA....often prevented from mowing the lawn or cutting their trees.
Originally Posted by AcesNeights
We have a fair number of volcanoes out our back door that should they blow will make St. Helens look like child’s play. Mt. Rainier is a serious threat but Glacier Peak which I look at almost daily from my place is the one that I worry about.

A rather timely article about Glacier Peak…

https://www.q13fox.com/news/scienti...at-very-high-threat-of-volcanic-eruption

The Pacific Northwest is enchanted by nearly a dozen majestic volcanoes that shape the landscape, however, there is concern over a volcano that lacks eruption monitors to predict when it might blow up.

Glacier Peak in Snohomish County is currently at a "very high" threat for eruption -- the top classification of threat levels, according to federal scientists. Currently, there is only one seismometer on the volcano to detect movement.

"You might ask why? Why is there only one seismometer at this volcano that is active and is very high threat level? Well, it’s very remote. It is in the middle of a designated wilderness, and beyond that, the area around it is wilderness," said Weston Thelen of USGS Cascades Volcano Observatory. "So, trying to get the data from the volcano out to a place where we can then download it and get it onto our computers is very difficult."

Thelen is a research seismologist for the observatory. He said the agency made a proposal to the federal government, asking to replace the current seismometer and add four more. He said the tools are critical in collecting the most accurate data and motion.
Wait until the Cascadia fault produces a big one. Last was January 25 1700 IIRC.

Should be a big earthquake followed by a tsunami. Was up at Oysterville Wa late 2018, all that would by wiped out following the severe earthquake. Sobering. Wash it all into Willipa Bay.
Originally Posted by rockdoc
Wait until the Cascadia fault produces a big one. Last was January 25 1700 IIRC.

Should be a big earthquake followed by a tsunami. Was up at Oysterville Wa late 2018, all that would by wiped out following the severe earthquake. Sobering. Wash it all into Willipa Bay.

I believe you are correct regarding our last big one based upon the dead cedar forest. The natives still talk about it in their lore. Because of the likelihood of earthquakes, tsunamis and volcanoes it took me over a year to find the “ideal” spot to raise the family. While my wife wanted waterfront I knew that raising a young family with their attendant little friends I couldn’t take the risk of not having eyes on them every waking moment. I think my experience as a firefighter informed that decision. I saw great parents that lost their most precious gift because they took their eyes off them for a second, I couldn’t go through that simply for a beautiful view. We’re on an island on the Lee side of Whidbey island 400’+ on a ridge. Our house is built on rock substrate and I’m as prepared as I can be for whatever happens.

PS….I just added earthquake insurance and civil unrest coverage. 🙄
Lava from oceanic volcanoes are generally runny and flow fairly freely. It's the ones on the continental side that have thick, viscous lava which really creates the pressure buildup. I'm always surprised at the number of ancient volcanoes in the SW U.S.

I can't imagine what the Yellowstone eruption would be like.
Was living in Gresham Or at the time and that morning I was at work at a grain elevator on the Willamette river in Portland. We had a good view of it.
A day or two later, we had 1/4” of ash on our house.
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