Where were you when the mountain blew...Mt.St. Helens???

ToddC

ToddC

Joined
Feb 2, 2015
Messages
3,348
Age
61
Location
Seven Bays Wa
Bike
2006 ST1300A
OK, this may only interest those from the great North West, but where were you on Sunday May 18th 1980, at 8:32am??

I was 16 years old on the back of my fathers 1980 Goldwing riding from the gas station in prep for a nice days ride around central Washington. We could see the black ash cloud coming, we thought it was a storm, until we got home and saw the news.
I grew up in Moses Lake WA. By noon we could not see the porch light on the house across the street because the ash was falling so thick, it was like midnight at noon. Next day we had 10 to 12 inches of fine talcum like powder covering everything. Didn't drive a motor vehicle for the next three months. walked every where.

ToddC
 
Last edited:
I was in Orange county CA. Can't remember anything special about what I was doing the day it happened, because it really didn't affect me. A few years later I drove through the carnage that was left, which was pretty amazing. I was up there in '83 on a bike trip, and in '86 on a car trip, can't remember which trip it was, or maybe it was both?
 
Last edited:
Sophomore in High School in South Texas..
 
hmmm, grade school in Waukesha, WI. Can't say I really remember all that much about it. A few years later I dated a girl that was living in that area when it happened, she had some wicked stories about it.
 
Senior in high school in North Texas.

I remember it being in the news but we had a small tornado hit our high school around that time so we weren't thinking too much about Washington state back then. ;)
 
I was 20months and living in El Paso waiting for my little brother to be born 3 weeks later. I do remember driving through the area in '84, I think.
 
I was in Renton, WA, lying in my bed, when all of a sudden the curtains (the window was open) blew in hard; just once. It turned out, that was when the mountain blew up. I had been thinking about taking my brother for a scenic flight around Mount St. Helens for his birthday. I watched the ash cloud head north toward Seattle, then turn eastbound, before reaching Seattle. The day grew darker as the ash cloud spread out. Of course, me and everyone else, were watching and listening to the news. Especially fascinating were the live pictures coming from Portland, OR of the ash cloud as it grew.
 
I was working at the Denver airport, all of the air freight containers from the PNW were arriving with an inch or two of fine, blackish-grey volcanic dust on them... I scooped some of it into a film canister (remember those?) and I still have it in my memento drawer -
 
Headed to church with family, then to my High School graduation that afternoon. But I didn't know about the eruption until quite a while later that day, so I've no single, clear memory of the moment.

A few weeks (?) later, my grandparents drove to Bremerton WA to visit my uncle... they brought back a jar of ash dust that they said was 'everywhere', covering everything. One of the comments I recall my grandpa mentioning was that the auto parts stores had NO air filters or wiper blades on the shelf--they would be sold as soon as they came in and were put on the shelf.
 
The day after my 13th birthday in Aberdeen, WA. I awoke at the crack of 10am to watch the Mariners play the Detroit Tigers on TV and they had a split screen of the Mariners game and Mt St Helens belching ash. It was a beautiful day, but unusually hazy. We spent the rest of the day trying to get through to our friends in Yakima while watching the coverage on TV.

We got ashed on in Aberdeen a couple weeks later. I still have a jar full of it.
 
Not me, but my older, Chuck, and family. They had moved to Portland to escape the California earth quakes after the San Fernando shake-up in 71. They could see the volcano from their front yard. Rude awakening.

Read at the time, news services were calling folks in Seattle and Olympia to get "impressions". Folks there told'em to call anyone they new in Portland, OR instead. :D
 
My wife and I were visiting the Oregon coast. We lived in the Portland area. We eventually were covered with a light dusting of ash.

I happen to be one of the unfortunate ones that experienced the Southern California earthquake in the early seventies and was also in the northwest when Mount Saint Helens blew.
 
Last edited:
Although I obviously read about the eruption shortly after it occurred, and ash from the event blew across my home in west central Wisconsin several days after the event, I had no clear understanding of what had happened until I visited Mt. St. Helens in July, 2012. The U. S. Forest Service has done a marvelous job in creating an amazing visitors center, and the ride up the valley gives one a better understanding of the severity of the eruption and its aftermath. Perhaps I am more visual than most, but I never dreamed that such devastation could result from a volcanic eruption until I saw it first hand, a full 32 years after it happened. I believe it is a "must see" for anyone traveling in the area.
 
Saw it on the news that morning shortly after it blew. It truly was an fascinating. I am very interested in all that mother nature throws at us. I have always wanted to come out there to see the aftermath but haven't made it yet. Hope to in the future.
 
By midnight in Grant County WA, directly in the path of the ash cloud, there was not a single cop car or emergency vehicle operating. All had been takin out by the ash. My father had a machine shop and had been installing heavy duty air cleaners on farmers pickup trucks for years. The City, County and State Patrol all called at midnight asking about those air cleaners. After they had declined the offer of same air cleaners just 12 hours earlier. Earlier they all said they had the ash thing handled by stretching womens nylons over the intake snorkels.

You can still see a pic of a State patrol car with the air cleaner strapped to the light bar and a hose coming out one of the headlight holes in the grill at the main Mt. St.Helens visiter center at the mountain.

ToddC
 
Last edited:
The next morning after the mountain left a huge deposit of fine talcum powder ash every where. We had between 8 and 10 inches. The sun was out, but it was deadly silent. There was not a bird to be heard anywhere. The ground was covered, they had no food. We didn't see birds again for weeks.

Dad and I decided to walk the mile or so to the local Safeway store. We had heard on the AM radio station the day before when the ash was falling, that the store was going to open if they could.
When we got there about 30 minutes after opening.....and it was crazy.....people using shopping carts as wheelbarrows, dragging their arm across the shelves and scrapping anything left into the cart. All the shelves were empty. We didn't get any more food supplies for the next 5 days. I-90 was closed at Ellensburg to the West and closed all the way to Spokane to the East.

I had friends who stayed at a rest area east of Moses Lake for two days untill the State Patrol would lead a caravan of 6 to 8 cars down I-90 at under 10 mph to avoid stirring up the Ash. There were over 100 cars that had taken refuge at that rest area.

The next 10 days involved every property owner. You had that long to remove the ash from your roofs and yards and get it in the street so it could be collected. The city set up irrigation sprinklers down each street attached to the fire hydrants to wet the ash before scooping it up into dump trucks.

One possitve was it made the bottom of the lake very smooth and soft for the next few months, it covered the old rocks and gravel on the bottom.

It was an experience,

ToddC
 
I was sitting at the kitchen table with my family in Victoria, BC. We heard a strange noise, very much like the sound of our garage door opening. In fact my dad sent me downstairs to see who had opened it! Listening to the news shortly afterwards solved the mystery of what caused the rumbling.
 
Last edited:
I was at work at an LNG plant in the Minneapolis area. We saw the results several days later.
 
Living in Reseda California, a year out of High School, turning a wrench for a living. I remember watching it on television and thinking back now I probably didn't understand the magnitude of it all, the loss of life/property and how peoples lives would be devastated for years to come.

Back in March I was in Vancouver to bury my Father. It was a sunny day, I could see Mount St. Helens covered in snow. It's beauty in the distance disguised its devastation.

Keith
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom