Sorry about the lack of substantial posting round here today. I meant to write up something last night. But the cat was in an extraordinarily cuddly mood, and as she is old and moods like that are rare, we lounged in bed with her perched happily atop my tummy whilst I read papers on Mount St. Helens and sometimes just basked in a silence filled with purring felid.
I did try to post something, but WordPress decided it hated the Kindle, and the computer was out of reach. So it goes.
For your reading pleasure, there is now a letter to Mount St. Helens posted on Rosetta Stones. It’s a silly little something, but I thought it would be a fun way to begin an in-depth series on the volcano, and it was something I could write on me lunch break.
Enjoy! And if you have any special memories to share about Mount St. Helens, feel free to add your say in the comments below.
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Lockwood
May 18, 2012 at 5:25 pm (UTC -7) Link to this comment
For the 30th anniversary, I did a series of my day-by-day recollections prior to and including the big eruption, then last year, I summarized and linked the series here: http://outsidetheinterzone.blogspot.com/2011/05/31-years-later.html The one post in which I think I did my best job of explaining just how the eruption occurred was the third one from May 18. http://outsidetheinterzone.blogspot.com/2010/05/what-happened-at-mt-st-helens.html Also, given how fanatic I am about geology, you my be amused by my initial reaction to the news… http://outsidetheinterzone.blogspot.com/2010/05/30-years-and-about-hour-ago.html
geocatherder
May 18, 2012 at 6:09 pm (UTC -7) Link to this comment
Dear Mt. St. Helens,
You did a wonderful thing; you did a terrible thing; you have the blood of many on your shoulders, yet you taught us more than we could ever have imagined learning.
If you give us the warnings you gave us the first time, THIS time we might be able to get everyone out of harm’s way.
But no thanks for taking David Johnston from us. May he rest in peace.
A geologist
Trebuchet
May 18, 2012 at 7:50 pm (UTC -7) Link to this comment
I haven’t signed up at SciAm yet, so will leave this hear.
On 17 May, 1980, we set out for a weekend trip in our cool new car, a 1979 Mazda RX-7. We headed north from Everett then west across the North Cascades Highway (SR20) to Twisp, where we stopped and took a picture of the car’s odometer, which had just hit 10,000 miles. We then continued on and did a tour of Rocky Reach Dam before stopping at Wenatchee for the night.
The next morning, while I was in the shower, my wife heard a noise. She looked out to see if our car might have been hit in the parking lot. It hadn’t. She thought no more of it and we continued our drive, listening to music on cassette instead of the radio.
Because the 18th was my uncle’s birthday and the 19th my mother’s, we decided to shorten the original itinerary and head south over Blewett Pass to I-90 near North Bend, then head over Snoqualmie Pass to Tacoma. Nearing I-90 it got dusty, and I cursed farmers plowing on a Sunday while closing the sunroof. I also noticed a black cloud and remarked on the thunderstorm they must be having in Ellensburg.
Nearing I-90, we notice some unusual police activity, but didn’t think much of it. Finally on top of Snoqualmie Pass we stopped for a restroom break. As I got out of the car someone nearby said, “I guess St. Helens finally blew. There’s an inch of ash in Ellensburg.” “Oh bullshiii” I started to say to my wife. As I was speaking I noticed our pretty copper-colored car. It was solid gray. Then I remembered the dust, and the dark cloud, and the cops. “Ohhh!”
We turned the radio on for the rest of the trip to Tacoma. Quite a day.
sc_085fe30c902abcacabd70caafd949c4c
May 19, 2012 at 9:26 am (UTC -7) Link to this comment
I was stationed at McChord AFB in 1980 as an airman with the 25th NORAD air defense sector. When the mountain blew in the early morning we were all recalled to the operations building where we proceeded to go on shelter ops. The outside doors were all sealed with tape to prevent entrance of ash. It was quite interesting, and maybe a little scary, to watch the ash plume on the radar displays. A friend and I had talked about hiking the mountain a year earlier, we should have done it.
About 27 years later, my wife and I were vacationing in the PNW, and visited the St Helens site. What an amazing amount of power was released on that day, that is still apparent in the broken tree stumps, the changes to the watershed and of course, the mountain itself.
lpetrich
May 21, 2012 at 10:37 am (UTC -7) Link to this comment
I have a friend of a relative who lives in Ellensburg or at least used to, and she stated that the eruption was the first time something made her hate a mountain.