Do any of you remember it?
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ZolotoyRetriever — 6 years ago(May 19, 2019 01:06 AM)
If you grew up here (before 1980, that is) and had seen Mount St. Helens in all her snow-capped glory, you'd know the sadness with which we saw her demolished in the volcanic eruption of May 18, 1980. For many of us, it was a very sad day!
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ZolotoyRetriever — 6 years ago(May 19, 2019 04:55 AM)
I was coming back to Seattle on board the Washington State ferry from Bremerton to Seattle when it blew up. I noticed a lot of people gathering on the starboard side of the upper weather deck, looking south, and word got out that Mount St. Helens had just erupted.
To be honest, you couldn't see a darned thing from that vantage point: the skies were all grey and overcast, so it's not like I actually "saw" it erupt… but I got home soon enough after the ferry docked, turned on the TV with my parents (who hadn't heard the news yet until I got home), and we watched the news coverage together all that evening. -
DrakeStraw — 6 years ago(May 19, 2019 05:04 AM)
Most of my relatives live near Aberdeen. Kurt Cobain was actually a distant cousin. I haven't heard any stories from them. They probably suffered from the same overcast day.
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ZolotoyRetriever — 6 years ago(May 19, 2019 05:12 AM)
I always felt a little bummed that the view to the south was obstructed by thick overcast and clouds that day… otherwise I probably would've had a good shot at seeing the ash clouds billowing up, even though it would've been at a pretty good distance. In any case, the TV coverage was really good, because the eruption didn't really come as a big surprise: St. Helens had been giving every indication of an imminent eruption for several months before it actually did erupt, so every news and camera crew imaginable was already staked out with all their equipment ready. So that evening we got really excellent live footage from numerous vantage points.
Probably the most memorable image was that of all the massive logs jamming up the rivers and smashing bridges as they rolled down-stream.
The prevailing winds over the next few days actually blew the ash cloud to the east, so much of eastern Washington, Oregon, and parts of Idaho and Montana got hit with layers of ash. It was pretty intense.
Schrodinger's Cat walks into a bar, and doesn't. 