I was just reading some local Facebook page and there was a post about how it's the 33rd anniversary of the eruption of Mt St Helens tomorrow and they posted a few links. Here are two.

Dave Crockett: Escaping from the 1980 St. Helens Eruption:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=njV9ski1gB4

Volcano Eruption Mount St. Helens May 18, 1980 USGS:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xP2dreOI8gI

I was 12 and living in Calgary, Alberta. We had an school assembly about it and I remember the ash falling a day or two later. I swept some it off my mom's car and into a bottle that I think I still have somewhere. I guess people here, in Victoria BC where I live now, heard and felt the eruption. I did not know that until today!

Anyways - a tragic event for those directly affected and a truly awesome (in the real sense of the word) display of the the power of nature.

Since a lot of you are Americans or Canadians living or have lived in the Morridor (and sort of close to MSH), I thought I'd ask... what do you all remember about it? Any interesting stories?

Yeah, I was stationed in Japan and coming home late summer 1980 to Longview, WA, my erstwhile home of record. So it happened just before we got home. Used to be able to see the mountain from the kitchen window. It was a benevolent snow cone, beautiful and symmetrical. An uncle had a cabin up on the Tootle River that we'd go to. It was all gone, the mountain top, the cabin, even the river. Now it's wonderful to go to the visitors' center that looks directly into the crater and witness the come-back.

You get so used to the volcanoes being just nice mountains you see every day, and forget how dangerous they can be. Someday Rainier will blow, and won't Tacoma be surprised.

I definitely do. My friend's fiance was on his mission in Washington State and he had to reassure her by letting her know that he was serving at the opposite end of the State.

I was a young kid, but I remember watching the news reports on TV.

Yes, but wasn't it 10 years ago, when I was 25?

Whattya talk? You're STILL 25.

LOL I was only 21 at the time.

I don't remember much. I was 10. I remember that it was on the news. In fact, I think there was talk about its imminent eruption prior to the actual blow. I remember people talking about the spectacular sunsets due to the ash that made its way to Tucson, but I don't recall any difference.

I watched it from a golf course in north Portland. (with golf nut ex husband.)

To see the smoke/ash billowing up in real life was one of the most awesome experiences in my life. It was nothing like what was shown on TV.

The difference would be more like comparing lightning with a lightning bug.

One of the more amazing things was: it just kept going....and going....and it was so HUGE. The insides of the earth gushing out. And the billows rose so fast. I thought if the earth was a balloon, pretty soon it would be deflated at that rate.

Jaggs of lightning flashed constantly thru it.

I heard somewhere that the true test of "awesome" is: No matter what position the body is in, the soul is on its knees.
St Helens eruption was awesome.

I love the view that you get of the mountain over in the Milwaukee area, and along I-84. I so much wish that I could have seen it from there. I only saw the aftermath.

We had lots of family in Portland. The whole place was covered in ash. It as eerie!
We were living in So, CA in Orange CO. but we made a trip up to check on the family.

In Raymond, WA, 8 years old and I can still remember Mt. ST. Helen blowing its top. The ash, the face masks to keep the ash out of our lungs, washing down the streets with a fire hose, and so much more.

I was an undergrad and remember thinking, we have active volcanoes in the lower 48?

Wasn't there a scientist and some researchers killed when it blew?

matt Wrote:
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> Wasn't there a scientist and some researchers
> killed when it blew?

Yes. 57 people, actually, including the research folks.

I lived in Gresham Oregon. We sat on the deck and watched it. The plume just sat there for days. It was awesome. A bit surreal.

It was about day 3, and I was driving home from work at about midnight. The whole world was black. I couldn't see head lights, or the lights in houses. That was scary. The ash made a mess. It was like having everything covered in gray baby powder.

I wasn't born yet. That's crazy that it's been 33 years already.

16 years old and started dating that lovely young man. (We've been married quite a while now.)

I was living in Lakewood, WA and watched the column of ash rise before we were bundled off to church. Impressive.

It's one of the biggest disappointments of my life. I was five years old, lived in Renton and have NO MEMORY of anything. Not a single blessed thing.

I was a teenager and the boy that liked me had gone up to somewhere near the Mt. St. Helens area on a vacation. He brought me back a jar of the ashes. This did not make my dad happy because I was way too young to date and this boy was way older than me and had a bit of a reputation. Dad called him "Bad Bob." His name was actually Bob. Anyway, he's one of the people who I'd bet money are exmo today so I wonder what happened to him and how my life would have been different if that jar of ashes had gotten him the attention he was looking for. On the other hand, he ended up dating my friend a few years later so I think he did just fine.

I can't believe all that happened 33 years ago.

I was a Public Health Nurse in the county. Worked with evacuation shelter at a school, assisted with Red Cross and Fema. The evening of the explosion the river downstream at Longview was uncomfortably warm when I put my hand in the water. Oh, how I remember. . .

I lived in Seattle at the time. Heard a very loud sonic boom. Then heard it was the mountain blowing. My sister lived in Eastern Washington. They made an announcement in church because the ash cloud headed that way. They let out early. It was getting dark in the middle of the day. She had a new infant daughter. They handed out masks to wear to not breathe in the ash, but since the baby couldn't wear a mask she came to Seattle. Ironically, although closer to the mountain, no ash in the air.

The trees looked like felled dominoes for miles. To get to the airport and the small plane we drove through mountains of ash on the sides of the roads.

Years later we returned and went through the memorial museum and drove through the new growth to see how nature had recovered after devestation.

Rexburg, Idaho waiting on the birth of my daughter. Next day the ominous dim sunlight peering through, with ash covering the landscape.

I watched it from my house in Lake Oswego. I was 4 at the time but I remember it well. Watching a mountain explode and feeling ash float down leaves quite an impression!

I was a kid and horrified. I imagined having to vacuum up ashes off the front lawn...never happened.

I lived in Bellevue. And had relatives in eastern Washington. I remember how fast the grocery store shelves emptied out.

My first day in US........

I was 16, and living right in the ash clouds path, and it was incredible.

It was like God was pulling a black blanket right over your head; it took a while, but the sliver of light on the eastern horizon got smaller and smaller, and then it was totally dark - at about 1:00 in the afternoon. And the ash was falling, kind of like a grey flour.

Spent the day watching it all over tv, I remember they were having riots in Miami at the same time.

Woke up to the biggest fucking mess I've ever seen. About 5" of ash, just like snow. But, ash turns into mud when you get it wet. It had to come off the roofs and lawns. What a royal PITA.

Nothing I've ever seen in nature compares. It was AWESOME!!

I was two years old, my little sister had just been born a week and a half before.
My dad had some earthquake instincts after having served his mission in Chile, so he reacted immediately while everyone else stood around.
He picked me up, threw me halfway across the room over a coffee table(scuze me, that's a TV table in mormonese) onto a couch. I remember thinking how fun that was as he bolted out the front door of the house we were visiting, leaving my mother standing in the middle of the room holding my sister.

I'm not sure what protection having me on the couch would have been and why he didn't try to get my mom to leave with him or carry me out the door or what..

A few years later, I was still very short so maybe only four years had passed, we went to visit the crater or as close as tourists were allowed. Everybody had to keep an eye on me as I was determined to pick up a pumice stone for a keepsake. "There could be a tree already growing in the crevice of the stone you've picked up! Leave it there so the forest comes back!" Okay, okay... Small children, always up to no good!

I have a small jar of fall out chuncks from five miles a way. A jar of sand size ash from 150 miles and one of flour fine ash from around three hundred miles.

Just interesting to hold and look at.

I had dated a guy who worked with me at Thiokol who was going to college--seems like the city starts with a P. I can't remember the name right now. He was in the midst of it. I also flew over it a few weeks later going to Seattle to see some friends.

We stopped there on a family vacation some 18 or 19 years ago.

Didn't realize it had been THAT LONG ago.

I remember it well. I lived in a small central Washington town. I was 16. I remember thinking when I heard we were to go home early from church "a volcano? yeah right those were all over in the dinosaur era." I guess I didn't study geography very well.

I also remember that I was opposed to take my driver's test to get my license the next day. I had to wait a couple of week. I was really bummed.

I was in South King County driving North, looked in the rear view mirror and saw a mushroom cloud.

I arrived in SW WA after the eruption and owned businesses within a few miles (as the crow flies) to MSH. It is an INCREDIBLE place....visiting it should be on everyone's Bucket List.

I've since moved to another part of the country, but miss the PacNW badly. My family felt so fortunate to have spent quite a few years of our lives there

I heard it from east of Seattle. I remember thinking it sounded just like the Kennecott mine explosions from when I lived in SLC.