Background:
On the ring of fire
2nd most recent eruption in 1800
8,364 feet (9,677 feet before May 18 eruption)
May 18, 1980, Eruption:
Preceded by a ton of volcanic activity over 2 months, 10,000 earthquakes
Magnitude 5.1 earthquake started it off
The north flank slipped away (largest landslide in recorded history!)
Pyroclastic flows as far as five miles to the North
Stats:
The 680 mph north flank landslide buried 14 miles of the North Fork Toutle River Valley, between 150 and 600 feet deep.
570ยบ F blast that went 17 miles north, and 230 square miles total.
Ash 15 miles in the air, 22,000 square miles around Washington. Areas as far as Spokane went completely dark
A ridiculous amount of trees were destroyed, enough to make 300,000 homes.
Pyroclastic flows went from 50-80 mph
27 people killed
^ Before and after the explosion ^
First Person Perspectives:
I read the front page of an article from a couple months after the explosion in a newspaper about someone who had survived the blast. The imagery was incredibly compelling, describing how this man climbed up a tree trying to escape the volcano. He was already burnt and injured and he had no idea if the rest of his team was dead or alive. He said that it was like, “The world was coming apart around him.”
A very different perspective comes from my mom, who was seven or eight and living in Seattle when it happened. She was not particularly scared, and the thing that she remembers most was watching people sweep up the ash into little bottles. She said that they were convinced it would be worth a lot of money in the future. It is not.
https://www.reddit.com/r/interestingasfuck/comments/1jgrdf2/mt_saint_helens_newspaper_laminated_and_ash_from/#lightbox (yes that is a reddit link but it’s a picture of a news article)
I really liked hearing about your mom's rather laid-back perspective of this enormous eruption! I visited Mt St Helens a couple years ago and it was really cool and very peaceful - very different from how it was when the volcano erupted, I imagine.
ReplyDeleteThis is such a wild eruption. I've learn about it a couple time but have never heard such a chill response as your mom had, which offers an interesting perspective. The contrast between her perspective and the other man is wild. I also liked how you did this blog post in bullet points, it makes it really digestible and easy to find the important information.
ReplyDeleteHaving driven from Portland to Spokane many times, it is difficult to imagine an ash cloud stretching literally all the way across the nothingness that is Eastern Washington, let alone dumping up to 4 inches of ash throughout the Spokane Valley. Here is an interesting news video about it. https://www.krem.com/article/news/local/mt-st-helens/photos-videos-mount-st-helens-eruption-on-may-18-1980/293-989e7af5-3b8e-44b5-9585-a4f1b5a375af
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