Has it really been 30 years ago today?

It’s difficult to believe this many years have past. I was 16 years of age as I slept soundly through the initial blast on that Sunday, May 18th. morning. My mother came crashing into our bedrooms shrieking “Kids get up; get out of bed, the mountain is erupting.” You would have thought it was Armageddon to have heard her. We ran straight to the television and then outside to see what could be seen in the skies. I clearly remember anticipating the ash fall and for the day skies to turn night as we had seen on the eastern side of the state on our television set. My Grandfather telephoned us from Bellevue, WA. Only 15 minutes away to say he had heard the explosion minutes before.
I was so disappointed to have missed the echoing bang form SW Washington. There had been an immense media build up to that Sunday morning and I missed the best part. If it had been a school day I surely would have heard the blast myself.

There were daily reports on the news stations headlining the weatherman. “If Mt. St. Helens were to erupt, the ash plume would travel in said direction” The weatherman was KING back in those days. Ray Ramsey at KOMO, and Harry Wappler at KIRO. We watched the dome grow and collapse, and grow again. Even to this day you can see steam rising from the dome.

The world seemed to have gone bonkers over Mt. Saint Helens. There were collector ’s items being sold everywhere. A liquor bottle in the state liquor store was an exact replica of the exploded mountain. My friend’s father bought cases of it. Friends told me stories about traveling to Hawaii and having people offer them money for their shirts with a picture of the erupting St. Helens which read “My parents went to Washington State and all I got was this T-Shirt”. Then there was all the cheesy jewelry which resembled jade in color made from the ash of Saint Helens. Friends from around the country asked me to scoop up ash and send it to them. Somewhere in my garage there is some a tiny bottle of ash. Maybe I should find it and sell it on ebay today. “30th. anniversary special? This theme was bigger the pet rocks, cabbage patch kids.

Today will be a day of retrospection of that fateful Sunday a time to remember those who didn’t heed the warnings to leave the area. The massive destruction to the forest lands, rivers and, local economy which was decimated. Washington is resilient in the thirty years since the forests have returned, the rivers are back on course and the economy is thriving.