On this day in 1980,
Mount St. Helens blew its head off.
- Over 230 square miles of vegetation and buildings were flattened.
They closed the park and told people in the vicinity that they should get the heck out of there. (There was apparently pressure not to close the park, but caution prevailed.) Mt. St. Helens was a rather MILD eruption..as such things go.
How big is Hawaii?
I lived in Kennewick, WA, about 3 hrs east. The boom rattled the house. About an hour later it became pitch black for 15 minutes or so.
Imagine if it had been ten, a hundred, or a thousand times bigger.
I lived in Humptulips. Was only 6 at the time. We thought someone had blown up a stick of dynamite or something. Then a week or so later (as I remember it), we woke up to dark gray snow covering everything. Everyone was wearing those surgical masks. Then came the bumper stickers - "Mt. St. Helens - A Real Ash-Hole"
after three month finally on May 18, 1980 erupted and Mt. Helena was the first time after the largest volcano in the United States was 'sleeping' for 123 years.