The mt. blew up 32 yrs ago today at about 8 AM.
I'm about 50 miles away and I remember the noise...sounded like a shotgun blast pretty close.
Now that I think about it the rusty '24 Tudor that I bought at a garage sale 10 yrs ago had an inch of Mt. St. Helens ash in it.
A lot of my family was in Anacortes for a wedding, and joked about the loud boom. Unfortunately, nobody turned on a radio, and my sister and her quadriplegic husband got caught for hours in the traffic headed south on I-5, and were finally diverted over to the coast. Try finding a motel with facilities for a quad under those conditions.
That was before celfones.
rdr
I bet Algore is still haveing nightmares about all that smog being dispursed into the air untaxed.
I remember it being kinda hazy around here after that.
I was stationed at Ft Richey Md at that time and we had to wash are cars everyday for I think close to a month
I flew around Mt st Helens about 4 days after the beginning of the eruption. We were in a brand new Gulfstream GIII at 45,000 feet and cleared by ATC to circle at a 10 mile radius. This was before anyone had thought of contamination to turbine engines by airborn ash. It was an awesome sight. The ash plume extended beyond 45,000 feet and seemingly into space.
So was there any ill effect to the turbine engines in the new Gulfstream airplane Royce?
I still think of old Harry Truman who didn't want to leave his Spirit Lake Lodge. I often wonder what his last moments were like. Also every trip down Interstate 5, I still see the mountains of volcanic ash that was dredged up from near the Toutle River so ships could once again pass.
Harold,
There was no effect from the airborne ash. The Rolls Royce Spey engines went to overhaul and had no issues.
There was ash falling in Oakland some days after the eruption but not enough to be concerned about.
I bought a house in San Francisco in late '76 so the owner could move two doors down and convert that house into a triplex and sell at a profit to buy land at the foot of Mt. St. Helens.
He had just closed in 1980 on the St. Helens property when the eruption took place. His land was covered with several feet of lava.
Last I heard he was a busboy in a diner.
It was an act of nature that happens once in a lifetime (hopefully). I was just a young kid living over the border in Nelson B.C. we had a layer of ash everywhere. It took along time to settle and when it did the entire top half of a mountain was gone.... I still have my souvenir hat and a small container of ash. I'll bet there are a few old cars that were abandoned along the logging roads still up there buried forever
We went to visit my brother in law who lived in Moses Lake at the time. Along the way we picked up some of the ash which is still in our cupboard here in California. He told us it got dark as night in eastern Washington.
Norm
Norman, The sand dunes in Moses lake still have "puddles" if you will of the ash. Riding 4 wheelers out there you still go thru these " puddles " and the cloud of ash will float in the air.
My son was attending WSU and in the library when the ash reached Pullman. He said the ash cloud blocked the sun light and then finally reduced visibility to near zero. When he finally got to his dorm he placed an open jar on a nearby tennis court. When he returned to retrieve it the jar was about 60% full. It was an experience none of us wish to repeat.
Not a good time to be driving a T with no air filter.
A few of my then friends used to travel the country and put up Pole buildings then.
They were headed home when she blew and they continued on in the thick ash but the air filter kept plugging up. Not being home in a few months they decided to cut a hole in the firewall of the van and put a drier vent hose thru it and hooked that to the carb and double stacked air filters to the housing inside the van. They still had to stop a few times to bang out the ash from the filters before they made it out of the ash before going up over Snoqualamie pass. They were using dust masks and wet towels to breathe thru during the trip. One of them has burn scars on his face still from when he was climbing MT Adams and had made it to the top when ST. Hellens shot ash and smoke up.. They watched for a bit before realizing the ash was over them and it was HOT as it fell from the sky.. Burned clothes, plastic bags used to slide down on and some facial scars as a reminder that Mother Nature is tougher than we are..