Thirty Years On

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Thirty years ago today, at 8:32 in the morning, Mount St. Helens erupted in an apocalyptic horror of searing volcanic gas and steam that vaporized everything in the immediate blast zone—wildflowers, deer, bear, campers, volcanologists. Old growth Douglas fir up to seventeen miles away were blown down like toothpicks. Surging mudflows filled nearby valleys and national parks and highways with anywhere from 150 to 600 feet of hot melted snow and goop. A vast plume of steam and pulverized mountain shot into the air and then began to drift eastward on the wind, a dark rumbling cloud that blotted out the sun and turned what had been a fine sunny spring day into an eerie, lightning-split night. Automatic streetlamps flickered on. Cocks began to crow. And those of us who’d grown up reading about the last days of Pompeii found ourselves thinking about, well, Pompeii.



I was living in Moscow, Idaho, at the time. As incredible as it may seem today, no one bothered to notify the authorities of that small college town that 1) the volcano had blown and that 2) the ash cloud was headed right for us. The annual Renaissance Fair in city park was in full swing, with everyone—including the cops—eying the black cloud on the horizon and going, hmmm, that looks strange. Then, as if some giant hand had drawn a black shade across the sky, day disappeared. A fine ash began to fall.

It fell into the night, drifting down like a weird gritty snow. Although we were several hundred miles from the blast, something about the wind and the lay of the land dumped an extraordinary amount of the stuff on top of us. The next morning we awoke to a clear blue day that disappeared into a thick white haze as people began to stir and the fine ash billowed up again.



I remember we were full of questions no one could seem to answer. Just how toxic was this stuff? No one knew. Could we let the cat out? What would it do to our car engines? To us? And how the hell do we get rid of all this stuff that looks like snow but isn’t? It’s not like it’s going to melt.

And then of course there were the horrible images coming from the mountain. A pickup truck with the tiny burned bodies of two little boys on a fishing trip with their dad. A couple camping 25 miles away from the mountain, far outside the “danger zone,” swept to their deaths. Compared to that, having to wear a surgical mask for months every time you wanted to play Frisbee was not something you felt you could complain about.

**

Until Hurricane Katrina, Mount St. Helens was the defining natural disaster of my life. I still recall those days with such vivid clarity that it's hard to believe it's been thirty years. Then I look at those funny old cars in the fading photos, and think, yeah, thirty years.