Where were you when the mountain blew?

[redshifter]

May 18, 2010 is the 30th anniversary of the 'big' Mt. St. Helens eruption. Given its location, it probably didn't affect many of our posters here. Still, it's interesting to hear 'where were you when it happened' stories:

My family and I (I was a month away from turning 14 in May '80) were living about 25 mi. SE of Seattle in 1980, and that morning we left early for a day hike in the Cascades. During our hike, we noticed what looked like really nasty storm clouds moving in, so we hiked back out earlier than planned. When we got back to I-90 headed W. towards Seattle, it didn't take long to realize the interstate was almost deserted, and NO traffic at all headed eastbound (toward where a lot of ashfall was anticipated). We turned on the radio and that's when we heard that St. Helens blew its top.

We were up when the eruption occurred, but did not hear it. Supposedly the initial blast could be heard for many miles (10's or even 100's) away. We lived about 100-120 miles from St. Helens. We did not see it either, but IIRC it was overcast that day. There were subsequent eruptions later that summer which we could see from our deck.

We didn't get any ash where we lived at the time, but my hometown in E. Washington (Richland, WA--about 180 miles E. of St. Helens) got about 1/2 - 1 inch of ash IIRC. Other areas in E. Wa. got substantially more.

[Fazor]

Ugh. I can't comment, since I wouldn't be born for another 2years (minus 18 days), but the title of this thread somehow got equated to the 'Edmund Fitzgerald' song in my head, and now the line, "So where were you when that mountain-top blew?" is repeating over and over to that tune.

[Gillianren]

I was back home in California--as my location indicates, I'm much closer to the mountain now--but I remember the news footage. I don't know why; I was a little over three at the time. It is, however, one of the earliest memories I can put a date to. My boyfriend and both of my best friends turn 29 this year, so none of them remember it, either, Fazor.

[Argos]

Well, I was in Brazil [and still am].

[jokergirl]

I wasn't even born yet... (I'm the same age as Fazor )

[flynjack1]

The day it blew I don't recall any specifics, however I do recall the stunning sunsets that summer and then retuning to Laramie WY for school and seeing volcanic dust on cars and such. It was a very light dusting in WY, but there had been more significant dust falls in my absence. The sunsets were memorable!

[NEOWatcher]

Me?
Senior year in High School. Prom, graduation, extra-curricular activities, and all sorts of stuff. I heard of it happening, but no time to pay attention.

[hawaii50girl]

Well I was not even born yet when St. Helens erupted. I have read a lot about St. Helens on the internet and in books because I love to read about volcanoes. I wish I could of seen St. Helens erupt but I do remember when it started erupting in 2004.

[kleindoofy]

A few historical events have happened during my lifetime which merit my knowning where I was when I first heard of them.

Mt. St. Helens is certainly not one of them.

I remember very many, including Mt. St. Helens, even where I was when I first heard of them, but save for a few they're not important enough to speak of them in those special terms. I just have a good memory.

Since you ask, I was visiting friends at a student dormitory in Würzburg. Somebody mentioned it in passing.

[grapes]

The day it blew I don't recall any specifics, however I do recall the stunning sunsets that summer and then retuning to Laramie WY for school and seeing volcanic dust on cars and such. It was a very light dusting in WY, but there had been more significant dust falls in my absence. The sunsets were memorable!

I was a graduate student at Wyoming, and a fellow graduate student in the department drove to Washington and Oregon for interviews. When she got back, I asked her if she'd seen Mt. St. Helens--she'd been driving down the highway, and cars started to pull off, they saw it in the distance, to the east of where they were.

[Gillianren]

I know there was an SCA event that weekend (May Crown?) wherein they had to give new directions to the people who would have been driving past the mountain.

[Torsten]

For me, it happened on approximately the 20th consecutive day of work managing a tree planting program that May. Heard about it on the pickup's radio.

The mountain's activity had been news for a couple of months, so when it blew it was not a surprise. But I was amazed at the size of the explosion. I simply didn't imagine such a violent thing would happen there.

I remember thinking, "I was just down there too!", because in late February or early March I had been on a tour of some tree improvement research centers and had visited Weyerhaeuser's operation in Centralia WA, just 70 or so km away. The first rumblings started under the mountain only in the middle of March.

Later, I received a NOTAM (Notice to Airmen) regarding the hazards of flying with volcanic ash in the air. I wish I'd kept that one.

[jfribrg]

I was at home in the Philadelphia suburbs. No responsibilities. No job. Free to do whatever I felt like doing. I had graduated from high school two days earlier. Wouldn't start college until September. Didn't get a summer job for another two weeks. Ahhhhh, those were the days. Then I turned 18 in August, became an adult, and had to leave those carefree days behind. Funny how I didn't realize how carefree those days were until they were gone.

[Rhaedas]

Can't say I remember the specific day, anything on the TV or anything, but the first thing that flashed in my head when I read the OP was the next month or so's National Geographic, and the stunning pictures and accounts of people that were there. The most surreal was the recovered film of a person in the area who spent their last seconds photographing the wall of ash rushing towards their car.

[Trebuchet]

Redshifter, you and I were pretty close together!

My wife and I were on an overnight trip, starting in Everett, WA on the 17th. We crossed the North Cascades Highway and turned south to spend the night in Wenatchee. While I was in the motel shower the next morning my wife heard the mountain blow but thought it was a car accident outside. We set out to the south to cross Blewett Pass -- radio off, still oblivious. Coming down from Blewett Pass near North Bend and approaching -I90 it began to get dusty and we had to close the sunroof. I blamed a farmer plowing, still clueless. Then we noticed a dark cloud to the Southwest. Thunderstorms in Ellensburg, we thought. About the time we got to I-90 we started noticing unusual police activity but still didn't turn the radio on.

Finally we mad a pit stop atop Snoqualmie Pass. When I got out of the car I heard someone saying "The mountain finally blew -- there's an inch of ash in Ellensburg." I turned to my wife to say "Oh baloney" or some such but didn't get past "Oh" when I saw our nice copper colored RX-7. It was all gray. We finally turned the radio on.

As we are northwest of the mountain, no ash ever came our way. There was one eruption where the wind blew in the "wrong" direction and dusted the ocean beaches, however.

[slang]

Ah, finally a nice place to put this, without starting a thread just for linky's sake. I don't remember where I was, I was 11. I do remember the event, and remember being not all that impressed with it. The fuller understanding of its severity and significance came years later.

The Boston Globe - The Big Picture: Mount St. Helens, 30 years ago.

[RalofTyr]

In Newport Beach Ca. sitting on the floor of my babysitter's house watching it on the news. I was in Kindergarten at the time. It was either May or June of that year that I got my first remembered sunburn from laying out napping without a shirt on in the sun.

[Swift]

First year of Grad School in Providence, Rhode Island. Certainly heard about it, but can't say I remember the details. I also, somehow, got a sample of ash a couple of months later and I remember running a sample of it on our x-ray powder diffractometer, but I don't recall the results or what I did with the sample.

My wife and I visited it around 1992, and are planning to visit it again this September.

[Jens]

A few historical events have happened during my lifetime which merit my knowning where I was when I first heard of them. Mt. St. Helens is certainly not one of them.

My thoughts exactly. When I read the title thread my first reaction was "what mountain"? I am much too young to remember Kratatoa . And actually, the biggest volcanic eruption in my lifetime was Mt. Pinatubo, but I don't know the date. And Mt. St. Helens too. I wouldn't remember the date either. I do remember seeing about it on TV. I was in New York, in high school, like NEOwatcher. By the way, the murder of John Lennon was a much more impressive event for me that year.

[Swift]

By the way, the murder of John Lennon was a much more impressive event for me that year.

I hadn't thought of making a comparison, but yes, for me too. I remember exactly where I was and who told me (in my room, my roommate Doug told me). Imagine.

[ngc3314]

Working at Lick Observatory on Mt. Hamilton, outside of San Jose. With limited detailed weather information easily available at the time, we spent much of the next couple of days watching the northern horizon in case the ash started blowing south. I had been planning a trip through Washington Montana, and Wyoming for later that summer; cancelled the scheduled camping stop at Spirit Lake after that. Somewhere I do have a packet of ash scooped up on the roadside in eastern Washington. I did stop at Mt. Rainier and hike up to get a decent view of the caldera and steam cloud about 10 weeks after the eruption.

Spine-tingly aside - a close friend and vulcanologist was trying to get a summer internship with the USGS, and was scheduled to interview that spring with David Johnston, but they could never manage to set up a meeting. She did much better with the BLM in Billings, and got big samples of the ash cloud raining out of the sky from there. Johnston was on the next ridge from Mt. St. Helens, radioed "Vancouver, this is it!" and was never heard from again.

[tlbs101]

That is one day I will never forget.

I was in Pullman, WA (senior year of college), ~200 miles East of St. Helens. My roommates and I heard about the eruption on the news that morning as did the rest of the campus, but with all the other recent reports of activity it was "old" news and we didn't pay much attention.

About noon, from more news reports, we realized that an ash cloud was headed our way and by 2:30 PM we could see it on the horizon, like something out of a science fiction movie -- "angel of death" type of stuff. By 3 o'clock the whole sky was darker than a moonless sky at midnight without stars and all the street lights were on. And the ash fell like snow. At first we didn't know if the ash-fall contained toxic gas as it has a slight sulphur odor. Police cars were rolling throughout the neigborhoods telling everyone to stay inside, on their PA systems, but I don't think they knew any more than we did about the dangers of the ash. After about the first 15 minutes we figured it was safe enough because there weren't dead bodies everywhere. I even walked outside briefly and got "snowed" on.

The ash continued to fall for hours and by the time the cloud had passed over it was nighttime.

Pullman got a few inches of ash and it was like snow that wouldn't melt. Driving was difficult; air cleaners got clogged; lubricated joints got messed up. Riding my bicycle in the stuff was almost impossible.

I remember that final exams got cancelled that week.

I still have a small plastic bag full of ash stashed away, as a keepsake.

.

[Gillianren]

I think how important it was to you depends a great deal on where you were and what your field was. Had I been living here at the time, it would have mattered quite a lot to me and it wouldn't be just a vague memory. (Probably. I was very young.) To someone living in Germany, say, there's no reason to have paid attention any more than I only have vague memories of Pinatubo myself. (I think I was in high school, and a movie I have makes jokes about it.) However, to anyone living in the Northwest, or even into the Great Plains in places, it mattered.

I remember John Lennon, too, but my most significant memory of that year was my younger sister's being born.

[danscope]

Hi, I was taking a cylinderhead of a Mack truck when I heard the news.
I was impressed.
Here today. Gone tomorrow.

Dan

[Ara Pacis]

I remember it well. It was my brother's birthday and we were then living in Portland, OR and noticed the explosion on the horizon and thought it was a storm. We found out shortly thereafter that it was the volcano finally erupting. My brother was turning 6 and he wanted firecrackers. Well, he got one hell of a fire cracker, and an inch of ash. A few weeks later, after mom realized we lived at the foot of another supposedly extinct/dormant volcano, Mt. Hood, we promptly up and left the region. I used to have a small baby-food jar full of ash, but after show-and-tell one year I put it up on a shelf where it later fell and made a mess and disappeared into the bowels of a vacuum cleaner. I guess that killed my chances of becoming a vulcanologist... but it did give me a nice excuse for being a know-it-all when offering to tell people what was then considered to be the longest word in the english dictionary.

[Tobin Dax]

In diapers, presumably, probably about 70 miles south of Portland. I guess it's possible that I was in a hospital in Portland at the time, but that seems doubtful three weeks after my birthday.

Though I was alive, I don't remember it either.

[novaderrik]

i was 5, so i was probably eating some dirt or something.

[SkepticJ]

The egg was inside mom, and dad wouldn't get around to making the spermatozoon for another four years.

[geonuc]

I was in Hawaii and recall telling my mother "your namesake blew her top today".

Years later, I would take a Physical Geology class with a geologist who named David Johnston as a good friend of his. I reckon it was (is) a small community.

[Hornblower]

I remember reading about it in the newspaper at home, but it does not evoke the searing "Where was I?" thoughts such as I have with the assassination of President Kennedy, the wounding of President Reagan, the live telecast of the Challenger explosion, or the 9/11 attacks.