Great piece, David! It really captures the magnitude of the eruption and the human experience around it. Reminds me how lucky I am to have lived through that (from a good distance, thankfully). Every time I drive south on I-5 and cross the Toutle River bridge, I am reminded of how awe-inspiring it was to see the video of the debris flowing down that river. For some reason, that has stuck with me even more than the actual eruption.
Yes, I, too feel privileged to live up here near MSH and to have been here when it erupted, though I was glad not to be on the summit seven days after I was there in 2004!
Living in Ellensburg when the mountain blew, I have many memories of that time. Two stand out: 1) driving 10 miles into town to report for mandatory 12 hour shifts at work. My 8 year old son and I were both wearing our swim goggles to protect against the swirling ash. I had to drive with my door open so I could see the centerline. It was like trying to drive inside a marshmallow.
2) a contingent of firefighters attending a conference at Central Washington University, after getting trapped by the closure of I-90, reportedly bought up all the beer they could find, and had an End of the World Toga Party on campus.
I was studying at the U of Colorado in 1980, taking a spring cartography class, and chose to create -as my final project- a map of the effects of a future eruption of Mt St Helen’s. It was based on a small paper back study published by.. the USGS? I don’t remember much about the study except that a lot of lahars were expected from melting snow. I turned in my map and the next day, Mt St Helen’s erupted! Altho I had completely messed up the scale (I had accidentally doubled the vertical units and it was too late to fix), I still got an A probably due to the timing. Thx for the article! I still remember St Helen’s when it was the Fujiyama of the PNW- perfectly symmetrical and so pretty.
Thanks for sharing. Have you tried this trick with any other mountains, that is planning to create a map of future eruptions, to see if you have any special powers?
as was brought home to me on one of the best one-day field trips ever (14 hr, 1990): imagine the results if the volcano had erupted when there was no snow on the ground...
I was in Alaska (USGS WRD) when it blew. We got film of the Toutle River the next day - awesome hardly covers it.
Reclaiming the fullness in Awful is wordwork worthy of the eruption, to be sure. I recall a chance small plane flight into the blast zone soon after the eruotion as one of my life's most awful adventures.
Choosing words well seems to be well worth the effort. I'm enjoying four days listening to Merlin Sheldrake picking words wisely in explaining how his microrhyzal research and reflections norish and extend his thinking on this entangled life we live in.
Like your reclamation of Awful, Sheldrake points to life's Extravagance to denote the generous super-abundance of this planet we come home.
Wonderful and written from the head and heart! Always be cautious about "biggest" since geoscientists look backward in time and there is always something bigger. So qualify just a bit!
As a for instance, the last time I checked the Pleistocene failure at Mt. Shasta seemed pretty big!!
It would be interesting to know how "a total volume of 3,662,261,734 cubic yards" was calculated. Being that precise, it doesn't sound like an estimate. I guess that in 40 years, the scientists have had ample time to measure the debris. Looking forward to seeing the answer in the forthcoming book.
When I was little, we’d drive by the mountain and I was always fascinated by the thousands of dead tree trunks that lay along the rolling hills, all pointed away from the blast. I always thought they looked like the quills of enormous sleeping hedgehogs 🦔
Great piece, David! It really captures the magnitude of the eruption and the human experience around it. Reminds me how lucky I am to have lived through that (from a good distance, thankfully). Every time I drive south on I-5 and cross the Toutle River bridge, I am reminded of how awe-inspiring it was to see the video of the debris flowing down that river. For some reason, that has stuck with me even more than the actual eruption.
Yes, I, too feel privileged to live up here near MSH and to have been here when it erupted, though I was glad not to be on the summit seven days after I was there in 2004!
Living in Ellensburg when the mountain blew, I have many memories of that time. Two stand out: 1) driving 10 miles into town to report for mandatory 12 hour shifts at work. My 8 year old son and I were both wearing our swim goggles to protect against the swirling ash. I had to drive with my door open so I could see the centerline. It was like trying to drive inside a marshmallow.
2) a contingent of firefighters attending a conference at Central Washington University, after getting trapped by the closure of I-90, reportedly bought up all the beer they could find, and had an End of the World Toga Party on campus.
Wow, thanks for sharing. And now I have a feel for what it's like to drive inside a marshmallow!
Awesome. In a word.
I was studying at the U of Colorado in 1980, taking a spring cartography class, and chose to create -as my final project- a map of the effects of a future eruption of Mt St Helen’s. It was based on a small paper back study published by.. the USGS? I don’t remember much about the study except that a lot of lahars were expected from melting snow. I turned in my map and the next day, Mt St Helen’s erupted! Altho I had completely messed up the scale (I had accidentally doubled the vertical units and it was too late to fix), I still got an A probably due to the timing. Thx for the article! I still remember St Helen’s when it was the Fujiyama of the PNW- perfectly symmetrical and so pretty.
Thanks for sharing. Have you tried this trick with any other mountains, that is planning to create a map of future eruptions, to see if you have any special powers?
Ha! Yes, I'm the Mother of Volcanos. ;0)
as was brought home to me on one of the best one-day field trips ever (14 hr, 1990): imagine the results if the volcano had erupted when there was no snow on the ground...
I was in Alaska (USGS WRD) when it blew. We got film of the Toutle River the next day - awesome hardly covers it.
Kitty R
Kitty
Yes the timing of the eruption certainly had a huge influence on the area, from how trees responded to how few people died.
David
Reclaiming the fullness in Awful is wordwork worthy of the eruption, to be sure. I recall a chance small plane flight into the blast zone soon after the eruotion as one of my life's most awful adventures.
Choosing words well seems to be well worth the effort. I'm enjoying four days listening to Merlin Sheldrake picking words wisely in explaining how his microrhyzal research and reflections norish and extend his thinking on this entangled life we live in.
Like your reclamation of Awful, Sheldrake points to life's Extravagance to denote the generous super-abundance of this planet we come home.
Write on!
Yes, Mr. Sheldrake (what a great name) has done some splendid writing about the final world.
David
David:
Wonderful and written from the head and heart! Always be cautious about "biggest" since geoscientists look backward in time and there is always something bigger. So qualify just a bit!
As a for instance, the last time I checked the Pleistocene failure at Mt. Shasta seemed pretty big!!
David D.
It would be interesting to know how "a total volume of 3,662,261,734 cubic yards" was calculated. Being that precise, it doesn't sound like an estimate. I guess that in 40 years, the scientists have had ample time to measure the debris. Looking forward to seeing the answer in the forthcoming book.
Roger, that very very precise number is due to me and to converting the 1250's number of 2.8 cubic kilometers to cubic yards.
When I was little, we’d drive by the mountain and I was always fascinated by the thousands of dead tree trunks that lay along the rolling hills, all pointed away from the blast. I always thought they looked like the quills of enormous sleeping hedgehogs 🦔
Like this--https://images.app.goo.gl/NFNoNr4FqBzcYHUg9