Mount St. Helens stirred to life in late March of 1980. Earthquakes and occasional steam and ash vents kept us all on the edge of our seats, yet we treated the event as a novelty, rather than a serious danger. Surely we were safe in Eastern Washington, 300 miles from the nuts who refused to leave the mountain and the looky-loos who flocked to be part of the danger and excitement. What did we have to worry about?
Still, every day discussion revolved around the latest activity at the volcano, both seismic and human. As the bulge on Mount St. Helens' side grew, we watched and waited. If and when the volcano did erupt, we all had visions of streams of glowing lava crawling down the mountain, like the volcanoes in Hawaii - at least I did.
Finally, at 8:32 am on Sunday, May 18, the mountain blew. We know now the terrible things that happened that day in the blast zone - the lives that were lost, the mud slides, the log-choked waterways. But on that Sunday morning, in Spokane, it still didn't seem real, still didn't seem like anything that would directly touch our lives. So, off my family and I went to visit some friends on the other side of town. There was some talk of ashfall, but there had been ashfall in Western Washington from the minor eruptions. Everyone had just dusted it off and gone about their business, no big deal. Once we arrived at our friends' house, we gathered by the television to watch the latest news. At the time, there was no film available showing the tremendous plume spewing ash miles into the atmosphere. The main warning that something strange was about to happen came from the satellites tracking the ash cloud as it headed east, and the surreal reports from the cities where ash was beginning to fall.
Soon, we could see the leading edge of the ash cloud ourselves. It was like a black window shade being pulled across the sky, wiping away the light of the sun. At this point, the eruption of Mount St. Helens became quite real. My family jumped in the car and we headed for home. It quickly became as dark as night, yet it was still early afternoon. Ash began to fall as we neared home. We made it there in one piece, but even in the short dash from the car to the house the hot gusts of ash plastered our hair, skin, and clothes with gritty gray particles.
The following dawn revealed a world covered in pale gray, the sky a roiling cloud that we could reach out and touch with our hands. Visibility was limited. School was canceled, of course. Nobody knew what to do with all the ash. Was it acidic or toxic? We soon learn the tricks required to function in an ash-shrouded world, wrapping toilet paper around car air filters and scarves or dust masks around out faces.
