Good Morning Everyone and thanks for the interesting input already today on our thread. Great interview from US News, and thanks for the maps too.
I was living in Vancouver Washington when she blew, and was sitting on a high ridge looking north as the plume began to rise up from the mountain. We were in a state of disbelief at what was happening before our eyes, but were primed and ready for the event to happen.
The nights before we had sat on that same ridge and watched the mountain area for the hot spots that would appear. Amazing points of red light coming from the mountain, and we saw lots of them, heralding the coming of what would turn out to be a true lifetime experience for a huge metropolis and thousands of people watching in real time.
I'll never forget it and I can close my eyes now and see it as though I was right back there on that ridge. xox
I was in High School in Thompson Falls Montana.
There had been so many false alarms and minor eruptions it had almost stopped being news.
I remember I got to do a joint report on it with a girl I had a huge crush on.
That day it was really grey and over cast and we werent watching the TV news (We only got two channels anyway.)
Then it started getting unnaturally dark.I was out side and my skin felt strange I looked down at the hood of a pickup I was leaning against and noticed kind of a scrim over the metal and I traced in it with my finger then realised this gray fine powder was falling everywhere.
It took a few minutes to think of Mt.St. Helens but I quickly banished the thought because surely this crap couldnt be coming from that far away...
My Mom turned on the news and then it all became clear.
Two guys I know had been up in the mountains scouting firewood and assumed what they were seeing was nuclear fall out and the world was toast.
They were most relieved when they got back to town after making their peace with God all the way down the hill.
Later my brother and I went for a walk.
It was falling in earnest by then and the whole world was grey with that kind of hushed silence you usually only feel on winter days when its snowing heavily.(This was in May)
I remember seeing a few cars that were moving silently down HWY 200 kicking up large rooster tails of ash 20 feet in back of their trunks.
Later everyone figured out this crap could ruin a engine so it didnt take long for people to stop driving.
I remember at one point people shoveling ash off their sheds because of the weight.
It was great fertilizer though,you should have seen some of the vegatables from local gardens the next year!
And for years later whenever loggers would fall a tree they would have to wait for the ash cloud to disperse.
Those were some surreal days.
A couple of days later to top things off we were treated to a complete solar eclipse as if the weird factor wasnt high enough.
I suppose if you were into signs and portents a person probably would have had a complete mental break by that point.
Of course when the first footage came in of the utter destruction around St. Helens we realized we got off very lucky.
One good thing about it it gave me four extra days to complete a beastly accounting assignment that had to be finished before I could graduate at the postponed ceremony.
Made it by the skin of my teeth thanks to St.Helens.