30 years ago and 30 years from now?
I was 21 years old when Mount St. Helens blew her top on May 18, 1980, at 8:32 a.m. That was 30 years ago today.
Like many monumental moments in history, I remember where I was when I felt the Earth jolt me from my slumber. It was Sunday morning and I quickly sat up and wondered out loud, “what was that?” I soon found out.
Not because I saw the plume of ash and debris, Northwestern Washington was mostly spared, but because complete strangers were talking to one another about it everywhere I went that day. Similar to when 9/11 occurred, radio and TV coverage was non-stop.
The signs of a pending eruption had been in the news for months prior to Mount St. Helens’ big eruption, long enough for the public to become somewhat complacent. Those who loved their home like Harry R. Truman, the old man who became somewhat of a folk hero for refusing to leave “his mountain,” forever rest there.
As it turns out, it was the deadliest and most economically destructive volcanic eruption in the history of the U.S. There were 57 people who lost their lives that day, which could have been more if had occurred the day following on a Monday when loggers would have been on the mountain.
Beautiful Spirit Lake disappeared along with 250 homes, 47 bridges, 15 miles of railways and 185 mile of highway, according to Wikipedia.
For young filmmaker Michael Lienau, of Camano Island, the eruption provided an opportunity to be the member of a crew who was flown onto the mountain by helicopter on May 24, 1980 to record the historical event that had taken place.
There were no handheld global positioning service (GPS) devices back then, just good ol’ compasses. However, once the helicopter flew out of sight, ash-laden air wreaked havoc on their compasses, causing them to spin in circles. The crew quickly became lost and the following morning a second eruption occurred. It was assumed the film crew had perished in the blast. Jeremiah O’Hagan tells Lienau’s story of survival and how it changed his life forever on page A1.
Thirty years later, excess sediment along creeks, riverbanks, drainage ditches, fields and more, provide unforgettable markers to the catastrophic event that occurred.
Thirty years from now I wonder how we will look back on the environmental disaster currently playing out in the Gulf of Mexico right now after an oil platform owned by British Petroleum exploded and sank April 22 – on Earth Day.
Estimates of 45,000 gallons of crude oil are continuing to spew into the ocean everyday since. The science of capping off an oil well that is 5,000 feet below the ocean’s surface is not yet known.
On one hand we seem to have come so far as a society since Mount St. Helens erupted, with scientists continuing to study and learn from the active laboratory it provides.
But how can it be with all the hundreds of working oilrigs in existence, that a disaster of this magnitude was never considered and a contingency plan put in place?
For the rest of the story, tune in 30 years from now.
– Kelly Ruhoff
Editor
