Barren Slope Devastated by the May 18, 1980 Eruption of Mount St. Helens

From USGS Volcanoes:

Mount St. Helens, 35 years ago, May 18, 1980, 7:00 PM. He weeps.

USGS’ contract pilot Lon Stickney takes off south and angles up the Toutle. He has been flying the USGS scientists around the volcano for weeks. He flies directly to Coldwater II, sees where the trailer had been by the quarry, where he’d landed the afternoon before. He flies over the bare ridge for a half an hour and calls to the Forest Service plane: trailer gone, ridge swept clean, no David Johnston. Nothing lives here. He lands at Pearson Airpark.

USGS scientist Harry Glicken returns to the Federal Building about 6:30 PM. To escape radio and telephones, he and Don Swanson duck out onto the fire escape. Don tells Harry about what he’d seen from the air that day, of Dave’s almost certain death. Swanson’d camped there two weeks and says he felt responsible for Dave. Stickney comes in. After so many days flying, he is exhausted. He says an hour ago he’d flown over Coldwater II; it had been wiped clean. Swanson weeps.

NEXT POST: 8:10 PM

Image is of an erial view of a barren slope devastated by the May 18, 1980 eruption of Mount St. Helens. USGS image taken in June 1980 by J. DeVine.

[This and other eyewitness accounts are from In the Path of Destruction, Eyewitness Chronicles of Mount St. Helens, by Richard Waitt, available athttp://wsupress.wsu.edu/new-titles.html.]

More on Mount St. Helens athttp://volcanoes.usgs.gov/volcanoes/st_helens/; images at http://volcanoes.usgs.gov/volcanoes/st_helens/st_helens_multimedia_gallery.html.

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