Do you remember Mount Saint Helens erupting? Were you effected? Can you believe it was that long ago? WOW.?

Answer 1

Mt. St. Helens erupted on Sunday, May 18, 1980 at approximately 8:30 a.m. In Yakima, WA, which is about 70 miles (as the crow flies) from Mt. St. Helens, the ash cloud began dropping hot beads of silicon. It actually stung my skin. At noon, it was like midnight. Everything was being covered with a thick coating of ash.

Cars, moving along at a mere 10 mph, sent up rooster-tails of ash. People had to wear surgical masks, if they went outside, so they wouldn't breathe the stuff into their lungs. Churches and schools were used as emergency shelters for stranded travelers. The airport closed, because planes couldn't fly in the immense cloud of ash.

During the actual eruption, my husband kept going out to the back yard to shake the ash off of our strawberry plants. The weight of it would have crushed them.

The Toutle River was awash with ash, trees, buildings, animals, vehicles, and a few people. Spirit Lake, at the foot of the mountain, all but disappeared. It was filled with ash and logs.

The pyroclastic flow was super-heated and scorched everything in its path. Harry Truman, the old man who owned the Spirit Lake Lodge, is buried under that ash.

Days after the eruption, travelers had to take alternate routes to reach the coast. The main mountain passes were closed. Yakima looked like a huge ashtray! Some roofs collapsed due to the weight of the ash. Many people were hospitalized due to respiratory problems. Banks posted signs on their doors, asking people to please remove their masks before entering. Store shelves were soon depleted, because trucks couldn't make it into Yakima.

Clean-up was an immense project. Neighbors helped neighbors. It was a time when the best (and the worst) of people came to the fore.

It was an exciting event and I'm so glad that I was here to witness the awesome power of nature.

Answer 2

I remember. It was May 18th, 1980, and I was 7 years old when it happened. I grew up and hour and a half west of Seattle, WA. So that'd be almost a three hour drive NW from the mountain.

My dad was watching it on TV that morning, and I was bitterly disappointed that I didn't feel the earthquake when it erupted. I kept going outside periodically and touching cars, because I couldn't see any ash falling, just to see if we got any ash. We barely got a dusting.

We drove down to Portland, OR, later that year in August. They were still dredging rivers from all the debris flows and piles of ash were swirling around on the sides of the freeway. I remember thinking how silly it was that tourists wanted to buy some ash, when all they had to do was drive down, pull off to the side of the road, and scoop up a free cupful of the stuff.

There are still squared-off piles of ash near the rivers that are growing grass, bushes, and trees now. But I bet that if you dig into one far enough that you could still come up with some ash.

Answer 3

Mt. St. Helens has lengthy gone through quite some eruptive cycles contained in the previous. on the prompt, eruptions have got here about each and each and every one hundred-one hundred fifty years or so, and the volcano itself is about 50,000 years previous. better than quite some further large eruptions are plausible till now Mt. St. Helens enters yet another prolonged quiet era lasting one thousand's or thousands of years, and Cascades volcanoes can proceed to erupt on and stale for one thousand's of thousands of years.

Answer 4

I live in Nor Cal, about 2 hrs North of San Fran and I remember that our sky was a bit grey for days after that.

How long has it been?

Answer 5

Yes. I was 16 and lived in Oregon (near Salem). I was amazed that the ash traveled that far. It looked like a light mist of snow.

Answer 6

I lived in Winnipeg, Canada at the time. That's north of North Dakota in the U.S. That's smack in the middle of the continent and we still had volcanic dust falling there, too! My window sills were dirty for weeks.

Answer 7

no
it was in 1980, by the way.