Where Were You On May 18, 1980?
What were you doing the day Mt. St. Helens blew it’s top?
I realize that anybody under the age of 28 wasn’t even born so this question does not apply to you.
I was 16 at the time. I was with my dad and cousin Frank at a bass fishing tournament with the Evergreen Bass Club on Silver Lake in Cowlitz County (only about 30 miles West of Mt. St. Helens). It was a beautiful clear sunny morning (much like it is this morning as I’m writing this). All weekend, we were hoping to see a puff of steam or a small ash plume, but all was quiet. I has witnessed several before on my frequent trips to Kelso.
Sometime around 8:30 AM, my dad had to head back to the resort to use the facilities. So he powered up the motor and we were heading back to the resort and he pointed at the mountain and when I looked up, we watched the initial blast and then Mt St Helens disappeared (just like the footage you always see of the initial eruption and landslide).
So we continued heading back to the resort. When we arrived, a lot of people were freaking out that they were going to die. My dad just calmly observed the chaos and decided to wait a little while until all the drama died down. Eventually word got to us about the I-5 bridge over the Toutle River was closed. That’s when my dad made the decision that we were staying for a while longer.
So what did we do, we motored the boat over to a store on the lake where one could dock a boat, he went inside the store and bought a case of beer, and we motored the boat into the middle of the lake and watched the ash plume (obviously this is nothing I would recommend doing today - time were different then).
After a few hours, we eventually got word that the Toutle River bridge was open again, and that’s when we loaded the boat on the trailer and headed home.
We never got any ash on us. I think most of it ended up in eastern Washington. The sky got dark (because it blocked out the morning sun) and the coolest part was all the lightening in the ash cloud. We never heard the explosion from our location. I’m not sure if that was because the motor idling or not.
This experience is something that I’ll never forget. I feel very lucky to be in the right spot at the right time to actually witness history and see the actual initial explosion and landslide occur.
What were you doing that day?
Tags: cacade mountains, cascades, cowlitz county, eruption, history, mt st helens, pacific northwest, silver lake, toutle river, volcano, washington, washington state history
May 20th, 2008 at 10:28 pm
That is probably the most memorable day of my child hood. I was probably 9 or so (second grade) when it happened. My friend Lawrence was over and he, my younger brother and I were playing in a big dirt pile where a neighbor house was being built. The great big “pillow” clouds started filling the sky it grew darker and darker. Lawrence’s mom called to tell us about the mountain and that he had to go home. We spent the rest of the day in the house. I remember it being pitch black at noon, then the ash started to fall. One of my older brothers had been at boy scout camp some place near the mountain but they received the warning in time and he was on his way home. That was the end of the school year that year. Moses Lake received nearly 6 inches of powdery ash.
It was recommended that people not drive because the ash would quickly overwhelm the vehicles air filters and destroy the engine. I remember seeing the sheriff cars with big tractor air filters mounted on the front for a while after.
Either the next day or a few days later it started to rain and there was concern over the weight of all the ash and water on the roofs of buildings. My dad and older brothers were up on top of the house and shop pushing as much off as they could. I will try and find some of the pictures of the “mud slides” down from the roof tops.
May 20th, 2008 at 11:25 pm
I remember how badly the east side received the ash. I recall seeing the news clips from Yakima where it was pitch black during the day.
In Puyallup, we only had on day that I could recall where the winds were just right and we had a light dusting of ash. That was a little later in the year.
Steve