Remembering Mount St Helens

Two days from now is the 30th anniversary of the eruption of Mount St Helens in Washington State. On Friday, April 18, 1980, the dormant volcano came to life in a catastrophic explosion. It destroyed 230 square miles of surrounding forest and took the lives of 57 people.

On that fateful day, I was still in my dorm bed at Washington State University when the sound of people yelling outside woke me up. When I opened the window to see what was going on, I overhead someone saying, "The volcano erupted!" Within a couple of hours, a dark, unnatural looking cloud appeared on the western horizon and slowly came over the town of Pullman, WA. Soon, the ash started falling. It was powdery, blanketing everything and impeding vehicles trying to drive through it as their air filters clogged with the stuff. That evening, not wanting students to venture out through the accumulating ash, the dining hall set up a makeshift dinner service in our dorm lobby. We felt like refugees! Later, I went out on the covered balcony and surveyed the eerie sight. Ash was still falling like snow, and the smell of sulfur filled the air. So surreal.

I spent the weekend holed up in my dorm, except for my trips to the dining hall in the adjacent dorm for meals. I donned makeshift protective headgear...a towel over my head, nose and mouth, and lab goggles covered my eyes. When I returned to my room, I would leave my dusty shoes and clothes in the hallway...all the other girls did the same. It was stuffy in the building as the ventilation had been turned off to prevent the ash from getting into the system. Everyone was glued to televisions to watch the constant news coverage of the devastation around the volcano and rescue efforts of the people affected by its wrath.

As Monday rolled around, classes were canceled as the university dealt with the uncertainty of the health effects of the ash. Was it damaging to the lungs? I decided to take a walk with a couple of friends to another friend's apartment for the day. We slogged through about 6 inches of ash on the ground. Police and other essential vehicles were outfitted with makeshift air filters raised to roof level to prevent clogging by the ash. By Wednesday...the third day of suspended classes...we were finally issued filter masks designed to protect from the most harmful particles, even though analyses of the ash were still inconclusive. On Thursday, the word was if we missed one more day of class, we would have to make up the whole week! Finally, on Friday, April 25...a week after the eruption...students returned to class. By then, the clean up of the town and campus had removed most of the ash from the roads and sidewalks.

It would take months before all remnants of the ashfall disappeared from Pullman. I still have ash I collected when I ventured out on the balcony on the night of April 18. It's a day that I'll never forget because I survived it, although survived might not be the right word for it. Perhaps experienced it would be more appropriate because some people literally DID survive the eruption. Many did not. As we remember this day, I wonder whether MY local dormant volcano, Mt Baker will someday soon awaken.