31 Years Ago Today

[Dinsdale]

Mountain go boom.





Round these parts, on May 18, we usually raise a glass to the 57 poor schmucks who got it that Sunday morning. Would have been a boatload more, but they'd evacuated a large area around the mountain.

But that one event changed the way we deal with and monitor volcanoes, since all of a sudden they were for'realz.

[Screw_Michigan]

I don't give two shits.

[Trampis]

I slept through it. I was 10 y.o. at the time and living where i do now in the Tri-Cities Wa. area about 150 miles to the east of Mt St Helens as the crow flies.When the moutain blew it was like a sonic boom, which used to happen on a regular basis. Whatever happened to sonic booms btw? Anyways... my older bro had a motocross race that day up the Yakima valley in Mabton. Hed left for it before the mountain blew and my mom and dad and I, not knowing whether they would cancel the race or not(cell phone would have been nice) left to go watch him race at 9:30 or so, an hour after the mountain had blown. Of course they canceled the race and by the time we got back home the sky had the weirdest clouds. Grey puff marshmellows. DEAD CALM too. Not the slightest air movement. Everything begining to get covered in a fine grey ash. Spent the rest of the day watching news coverage of floods and snowing ash in Yakavegas.

For the next week or so the teachers wouldnt let us go out for recess and when we left the building to get on the bus we had to cover our mouths with a damp kleenex so as not to breath in any of the ash. 1980 gas mask technology right there. All the farmers put long extensions on the air intakes of all the tractors etc to get them out of the perpetual dust cloud that was stirred up by the tires. All the natives to this day still have there jar of historic Mt St Helens ash somewhere on a shelf. :)

Rack that god damn Harry Truman for stareing the bitch down like only an old man could.

[Dinsdale]

We went up to Pittock Mansion right afterwards, and watched the show -- until all the ash backed up all the onshore flow, and between all the ash and the clouds getting stuck, it pretty much turned to nighttime.

we had to cover our mouths with a damp kleenex so as not to breath in any of the ash. 1980 gas mask technology right there.

In the construction trades, we call that a "Mexican respirator."

All the natives to this day still have there jar of historic Mt St Helens ash somewhere on a shelf.

I've got a big ol' jar from the first big ash plume, which due to funky winds that day, actually headed for civilization.

We were cleaning that shit up for years.

Rack that god damn Harry Truman for stareing the bitch down like only an old man could.

GIVE HER HELL, HARRY!

That was the battle-cry for a couple of months. Didn't quite work out that way.

There's kind of a lake there again.

[Get fucked]

I don't give two shits.

Yeah.

Get fucked

[smackaholic]

wtf does Harry have to do wit it?

[Trampis]

He ran Spirit lake resort just acfew miles east of Mtst helens for a gazzilion years and refused to leave when everyone esle was evacuated. He put on quite a show for the media with the "that god damn mountain aint going to get me " shtick. If i remember right, his wife was dead and buried up there already. Hed have a whiskey drink in one hand whilst entertaining...quite the character. We should all be so lucky as to go out the way he did.

[smackaholic]

We should all be so lucky as to go out the way he did.

Choking to deaf on volcanic ashe?

I'll pass, thanks. I'm still hoping for the 'in my sleep, at age 93 after banging 23 year old blonde twins' ending.

[Goober McTuber]

He ran Spirit lake resort just acfew miles east of Mtst helens for a gazzilion years and refused to leave when everyone esle was evacuated. He put on quite a show for the media with the "that god damn mountain aint going to get me " shtick. If i remember right, his wife was dead and buried up there already. Hed have a whiskey drink in one hand whilst entertaining...quite the character. We should all be so lucky as to go out the way he did.

Oh, so that's who Truman named himself after. An aging alcoholic halfwit.

[Dinsdale]

"It won't hurt me, I'm a mile away!"

Where the northwest side of St Helens (where Spirit Lake is) drains into the Toutle River valley, there was a 600 foot wall of boiling water/mud/ash.

No, that wasn't a typo -- 600 fucking feet.

In 1980, we learned just how quickly a Cascade Volcano can roar to life. If anyone's not familiar with Mt Rainier... it's huge... like bigger than Ucan't guns. Of all the water stored in glaciers in the entire Cascade Range (which is hundreds of miles long, with hundreds upon hundreds of gaciers), over half of that water is on Mt Rainier. And if Rainier decided to "warm up" one day -- there's probably at least a half-million people living in the valley below it. It would be destruction the likes of which the USA has never seen. But, on the plus side -- if you've ever been to Tacoma area, you realize that Mother Nature is doing her best Darwin impression, and taking out the trash.

[Dinsdale]

http://www.nwcn.com/news/saint-helens/M ... 06344.html

Pretty good interview there. That woman will never require laxatives.

Cool clip.

I was 12 (just short of 13), and I'll never forget that crazy day -- iconic moment in Portland/SW Washington history.

I grew up pretty much at the base of the West Hills, on the west side. From the right spots, we used to see the top of St Helens from there. Now, less 1300 feet of elevation... not anymore. Still plain as day on the other side of the hills in Portland proper, but not from the far-west side. It's just... gone.

[Shlomart Ben Yisrael]

If anyone's not familiar with Mt Rainier... it's huge... like bigger than Ucan't guns.

"No way! Does this guy Mt Rainier lift? YEEEEHAWWW!!! U&L, here I come!!!"


Sincerely, KC Scott

[Dinsdale]

you've got Ranier, Hood, MSH & Baker (which is getting happy) right in a little area. That's a little concerning. I guess you just have to be ready to open a can of haul-ass if they blow...

Baker, Rainier, Hood, Adams, Jefferson, Bachelor, Three Sisters (the triple-whammie), Newberry, et al, all the way to Lassen and Shasta in california.

South Sisterwas starting to bulge at a pretty good clip a few years ago -- it's stopped, but for how long? The scientist-types say of all the Cascade volcanoes, you can set your watch by South Sister -- it goes just about exactly every 1600 years... and its last eruption was 1600 years ago. Eugene is (a ways) downstream from there, with Bend on the other side.


But what no one wants to talk about, adress, or even think about, is the Boring Lava Field. It's been extinct for a long time (allegedly, although it still spews some steam on an occasion)... but what a brilliant place to build the 23rd largest metro area in the country on top of. There's 15 freaking dormant/extinct volcanoes in the Portland area. I happen to live next to one (Mt Sylvania).


Cool but huge pic of Portland's volcanoes, and beyond -- http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/c ... o_edit.jpg

You can see St Helens to the left of the pic (straight out over the river), Hood to the right, and a tiny glimpse of Adams in between them. But you see what a view we have when St Helens starts her shenanigans, like she did 6 years ago, or whenever the hell that was. It's stopped again, but nothing surprises us from that fucker anymore.

[Y2K]

In one cetury we have had two major eruptions out West. I have seen the carnage from both Lassen and Mt St. Helens and it's mindboggling the power and scope of what happened at both locations. The backside of Lassen National Park is like a moonscape as far as you can see. Just like ole dumbass Harry if you are anywhere close it's more than likely you are dead.

[Dinsdale]

It sounds to me like you folks in the U&L need to start offering up a shitload of sacrificial virgins pronto.

Dude -- Diego lives in the U&L... we don't have any virgins left.

[Truman]

The ash-clouds blotted out the sun for two days straight here in the Flyover after that mountain blew. Never seen anything like it. Friggin' grit from those clouds sent everyone scrambling to the car washes, and it rained like hell three days after.

Not even in the same league as your home, Dins, and I'm not even gonna try to compare it, but I remember being amazed how that mountain could create such an æffect over 1,500 miles away....

[H4ever]

I was very young but I recall ash in Nebraska from MSH. The super volcano under Yellowstone scares the shit out of me.

[Diego in Seattle]

In 1980, we learned just how quickly a Cascade Volcano can roar to life. If anyone's not familiar with Mt Rainier... it's huge... like bigger than Ucan't guns. Of all the water stored in glaciers in the entire Cascade Range (which is hundreds of miles long, with hundreds upon hundreds of gaciers), over half of that water is on Mt Rainier. And if Rainier decided to "warm up" one day -- there's probably at least a half-million people living in the valley below it. It would be destruction the likes of which the USA has never seen.

Who cares?!

Sin,
Bobby Jindal