https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xP2dreOI8gI
Admit it. You’ve thought at least once in your life that there are things in this world you thought you’d never see, certainly not up close.
I’ve had a few of those thoughts in my life. But if you live long enough and are fortunate travel and see a few places around the world, you get to check many of those things off your “bucket list.”
I never thought I’d ever witness a volcano explode, even though I grew up in a part of the country — the Pacific Northwest — that features a range of mountains, the Cascades, that includes a string of dormant and extinct volcanos stretching from British Columbia to northern California.
On May 18, 1980, that all changed.
Mount St. Helens, a once-pristine peak that sits about 60 or so miles northeast of my hometown of Portland, Ore., erupted in a massive cloud of gas, ash, rock and magma. The prevailing wind took the massive cloud northeast over the Yakima Valley, Spokane, the Idaho Panhandle and over much of Montana.
The world had been following this story for months prior to the explosive moment. The U.S. Geological Service had sent a team of scientists to study the earthquakes that had been rumbling under the peak since February 1980. Washington Gov. Dixie Lee Ray had issued warnings to residents around the base of the peak to get out. Most of them did.
One who didn’t leave was a crusty old fellow named Harry Truman. “I ain’t goin’,” he’d say, or words to that effect. He and his cats stayed put and were buried under several hundred feet of volcanic mud.
It was a Sunday morning when the mountain blew. We didn’t see it actually explode from our house in Portland, as it was overcast that day … imagine that, eh? But it erupted and blew roughly 1,500 feet off the summit of what used to be a nearly perfect cone-shaped peak, one of several that dominates the horizon north and east of Portland.
We would see subsequent eruptions later that summer. One, in July, sent an ash cloud actually higher into the air that the May 18, 1980 cataclysmic blast. The mountain has experienced minor eruptive episodes in the years since and I believe the USGS still classifies St. Helens as an active volcano.
Arguably the most memorable quote of that remarkable moment came from a USGS scientist, who, when the mountain blew was perched on a ridge across Spirit Lake. David Johnston had been monitoring the mountain for weeks, reading seismic equipment and feeding data back to his headquarters in nearby Vancouver, Wash., just across the Columbia River from Portland.
Then the blast occurred, prompting Johnston to exclaim: “Vancouver, Vancouver, this is it!”
Then, in an instant, David Johnston was vaporized.
The rest of us remember the event well.