Mount St. Helens, 35 years ago, May 18, 1980

From USGS Volcanoes:

Mount St. Helens, 35 years ago, May 18, 1980, 12:30 PM. We sat at the table for a long time saying nothing, stunned.

Jerry Wheeler camped 17 miles northeast of Mount St. Helens near French Butte, a mile southwest of Pole Patch Campground. That morning, after chatting with fellow campers, Wheeler hears a rumbling. He turns and sees a big dark cloud growing near the mountain. He takes a couple of pictures, thinking if the cloud gets bad he’d get in his camper. The cloud gets big and comes on fast. He gets in the car.

Leaving the camping gear, Wheeler drives northeast away from the cloud. Mudballs the size of golf balls thump so loud on the car they sound like rocks. The edge of the cloud passes overhead, ash falls thick; the air goes black. He sees almost nothing. He turns on the wipers and everything smears, still damp. He creeps along at 5 mph, his head out the window to see the road, shirt covering his head so he can breathe. Lightning strikes and thunder roars. His car stalls but restarts. He creeps another mile. The car stalls again and won’t restart.

He leaves the car and walks down to Road 125, flagging the first pair of headlights headed north. They drive to Randle (WA), arriving at about 12:30. There, he sees kids running in dry-powdery ash thinner than an inch, throwing a football and Frisbee like it was Sunday in the park. They stopped at a café. Inside it was full. Wheeler is filthy with ash. People stop talking and stared. Wheeler and his companions sit at a table, for a long time saying nothing, stunned. Later, the stranded people are let into the school for the night. Wheeler overflows to the principal’s house and sleeps on the floor.

NEXT POST: 1:45 PM

Image is of truck and horse trailer plastered with volcanic ash near Ryan Lake. USGS image taken May 27, 1980 by D. Dzurisin.

[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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