What happened on May 18, 1980?

This picture was taken May 10, 1980. The picture below was taken Sept. 10, 1980.

I would ask this question each year to people I worked with. I'm sure they loved it. ;-) After several years, I started to get the answer. woohoo! I love history. This is the story of the eruption of Mt. St. Helens from the view of a five year-old...or at least what I remember about it when I was five.

My family had just moved to Othello, Washington two weeks prior to the eruption. We lived on what is called Radar Hill, which is up a steep hill just outside town. My Dad had a brother and sister that lived with their respective families in Othello. Sunday we were all over at my Aunt Linda's butchering chickens. I am told that chickens have to be butchered by a certain age or they are too old and don't taste good. I guess we'll use that as the excuse why we would be killing animals on the Sabbath. ;-) All I remember about this is the flapping wings of a dead chicken.

When we finished we headed home. I remember like it was yesterday looking at the strangest clouds I had ever seen. It was like someone took cotton balls, dipped them in dark grey paint, and neatly placed them in the sky. I also remember feeling uneasy because my parents were talking about the clouds all the way home and really concerned about them. I'm not sure what time this was, but I know it was still in the morning hours.

When we got home we turned on our silver stereo. I don't remember it having a cassette player on it. I remember the big silver dials, the turn table that I used to play my "You Light up My Life" album and the blue lights from the radio tuner. I don't remember ever hearing about a volcano erupting. I remember cooking chicken in the kitchen and filling our bathtub with water. I knew something was happening because my mom was worried. By the way, whenever there is a possibility to loose power you should always fill your bathtub with water. If you need fresh water for cleaning or flushing toliets you will be happy!

Around noon, or what I thought was noon, it got pitch black outside. Not like a dark night kind of dark. It was literally the color black in the sky. I remember looking out at the horizon and seeing a very bright light. It was as if the black was over our house and in the distant you could see the light from the sun. It was like a border around the sky to me. That's when we brought a cat in the house. I can remember people outside bringing their animals inside. A few people came into our house, including a man with a cowboy hat on. I'm not sure if we knew him or not, but he tracked in something that looked like dirty snow to me. We tried to keep it all outside. When I did look outside it looked dark and snowy.

That's is pretty much my memory from the day the mountain erupted. I don't have much memory of cleaning up all the ash. I do remember what it felt like to touch and walk through. It was the finest feeling...like touching flour. When I walked it would kick up a cloud of dust.

Here are some details on what happened on that day, 29 years ago.

Mount St. Helens erupted on May 18, 1980 at 8:32am. Shaken by an earthquake measuring 5.1 on the Richter scale, the north face of this tall symmetrical mountain collapsed in a massive rock debris avalanche. Nearly 230 square miles of forest was blown down or buried beneath volcanic deposits. At the same time a mushroom-shaped column of ash rose thousands of feet skyward and drifted downwind, turning day into night as dark, gray ash fell over eastern Washington and beyond. The eruption lasted 9 hours, but Mount St. Helens and the surrounding landscape were dramatically changed within moments.

The massive ash cloud grew to 80,000 feet within 15 minutes and reached the east coast in 3 days. Although most of the ash fell within 300 miles of the mountain, ash circled the earth in 15 days and continued to stay in the atmosphere for many years.

This really was a big event in my little young life that has stuck with me for 29 years.