The Day The Mountain Blew

On Sunday May 18, 1980, Mt. St. Helens erupted destroying thousands of acres of property across an entire region, and killing 57 people. That was 31 years ago today. But it’s what happened in the aftermath, the volumes of volcanic ash left behind in the wake of the violent explosion that I remember the most. However, living in Spokane at the time, about 200 miles from the mountain, I wasn't even aware of the 8:31 a.m. eruption till later that afternoon.

It was a beautiful spring morning, the type of day I couldn't wait for during the long, cold Northwest winters. It was a day to be out among the living, too nice to stay inside and watch TV or listen to the radio- that was for sure. My focus that picture perfect morning was on getting outside and playing, so I had no clue what had happened or what was on the way.
 

Dennis Bossingham came over around 9:30. We made some calls to organize a baseball game at Manito Park with some of the guys from Whitworth. Noon was when we planned to meet, and with time to kill before heading to the South Hill, Dennis and I finished off a round of mini-golf at the course next to Lilac Lanes and fed some quarters to the Pac-Man and Space Invaders machines inside the adjacent arcade. After that we made a quick pit stop over at Zip's Drive-In on Francis for some lunch.
 

As we left the arcade however, we both noticed the bright sunny day had begun to cloud up. Moving west to east, a huge black cloud appeared to be devouring the once pristine sky. In the warm spring air, it uncharacteristically looked like a big storm was brewing. We didn’t usually see those until summertime, but thunderstorms in May weren’t completely unheard of, either. Besides it still looked a long ways off and even if it held together wouldn’t dampen anyone’s spirits for too long. They usually blew by quickly and playing ball during a cloudburst was kind of fun. Nothing like sliding into second base on a muddy infield. You might not stop.
 

However as we reached the car, somebody pulled into the space next to us and when he got out asked excitedly, "Hey did you hear? Mt St Helens blew!"  Actually, not at all. The old saying, its news to us, well, it really was. That wasn't a storm moving in; it was the leading edge of the eruption’s ash cloud and though there was still sunlight underneath the apocalyptic-looking cloud-mass, the day was growing quickly and eerily darker. The temperature had fallen, too. Perhaps as much as 15 degrees from the previous hour and suddenly it wasn’t such a nice day to be outside.
 

So much for our baseball game, too. With everyone abuzz about the eruption and glued to its coverage, none of the guys wanted to play ball anymore.  It was a quarter to 1. Dennis and I left Zip’s and headed back to my house. Turning up Division, the roiling stone grey cloudbank kept gobbling up sky and turning the daylight even darker. Oddly, it seemed like it was following us, too- we couldn’t get away from it. Back at my place we turned on the TV. It was 1:00 in the afternoon and all three Spokane stations- Channels 2, 4, and 6- were offering live wall-to-wall updates on the eruption. Dennis stayed for awhile, but then decided to go home himself.
 

I continued to watch the tube with an eye out the front window. Within the hour, I couldn't believe what I was seeing: at 2:00 in the afternoon the sky had become pitch black. Like the dead of night. Stepping onto the porch, the birds that’d been singing and chirping all morning had gone to sleep and the street lights had come on. It was as dark and quiet as midnight. Then it started snowing. Only it wasn’t snow- it was ash.
 

From playing mini-golf at 11 a.m., in perfect golden spring sunshine, to standing in my front yard at 2 p.m. under a gentle falling of ash and what seemed like 2 in the morning; it was the strangest weather day I think I'd ever seen. The sky eventually lightened up, but only a little. At 6 p.m. under a murky overcast, from an 80 degree high at noon the temperature had dropped 21 degrees, down to 59, and the sky continued a slow rain of Mt. St. Helens dust. 
 

In the dim gray twilight, the sun, blotted out by smoke and ash, had begun to sink. It was a curious looking evening and on impulse, decided I wanted to venture out into the gathering gloom. Heading down West Columbia, the volcanic grime had covered everything, including the road, coated in a thick layer of chalky powder, which contributed to a slippery ride. It was like driving on a thin coating of snow. I had to drive much slower than the speed limit because as the car moved it disturbed the fallen soot, causing it to belch up a haze of veiled dust that reduced the visibility.

At the major intersections, though the signals worked, cops were out directing traffic. With vehicles moving ever so cautiously, they stopped each one (though there weren’t many) and politely asked drivers who didn’t need to be out- like me- to not be. In other words, get off the roads. At the Rowan & Maple crossing, that’s what the officer tersely requested of me when it was obvious I was just out looking around. ”Now, please!” Message understood, ten minutes later I was off the dusty and dark streets, and safe at home.
 

As Sunday night turned to Monday, city, state and even federal officials still didn’t know what to do, and seemed to be grabbing at straws for solutions. At midday, Mayor Bair ordered surgeons masks be distributed to every person within the city limits, and asked all residents to wear them outdoors to keep from breathing in the dust. (I wonder how much that cost the City of Spokane- we all got 2 of 'em).

Next, the mayor encouraged all home owners to hose the ash off of the lawns, sidewalks and driveways on and around their property. We were to wash it into the gutters, where the City - in theory- would dispatch its entire fleet of street sweepers at regular intervals and suck it all up. It was a nice idea but completely unworkable. They couldn’t keep up with it. Besides, you really couldn't sweep or spray the stuff down; there was too much of it to sweep and applying water just turned it into a gooey paste. So the streets remained mostly un-scrubbed. And what didn’t soak in, stick or get washed off, just stayed where it was; drying into a fine, flaky, dust. A shoe-top fog kicked up whenever you walked in it. It made me think of “Pig-Pen”, in Charlie Brown comic strips.

One thing the City of Spokane did get right was keep all non-essential traffic off the streets. It minimized the clouds of wispy gray soot that every passing vehicle kept kicking up. Not only were these moving billows of ash a safety hazard, as the cinders scattered into the air, the odds increased of breathing them back into your lungs. But when the stay-at-home order came out, though prudent, living in Spokane after the eruption was almost like living under Marshall Law. Except for walks to the grocery store, or another futile attempt at yard and sidewalk ash clean-up, for the next five days I was pretty much indoors and home bound.
 

The mess wasn’t confined locally, either; President Carter declared all of Washington state, Idaho and most of Western Montana disaster areas. But with nearly the entire population of Spokane pretty much confined to their homes, schools and businesses were closed for the entire week, too, including the hockey store I worked at part time. And though my other part time job was in the media, my position at KCKO was deemed non-essential. The station was not a news source and my position as board operator/producer could be covered by staffers who lived closer to KCKO’s South Hill studios. On the complete opposite side of town, over a half hour drive time away, I was told to stay home, with no place to go and no way to earn an income. Working hourly, if you’re not there, you don’t get paid.

Worse, though, was my car. I didn't have a garage, just an open carport. So my VW Rabbit was basically left outside to fend for itself in the aftermath of the eruption; which meant it was doomed. Volumes of soot and ash settled into the guts of the car, grinding and eating away at its internal workings and gears and rendering the vehicle nearly inoperable. The powdery pumice basically killed it. When finally allowed to get out and drive, I took my little Rabbit-- coughing and sputtering all the way- to a nearby mechanic, who pronounced it gone beyond repair. So I left it there, on its death bed waiting to be put out of its misery, and walked home. I assumed they disposed of the body because I never saw it again.
 

Before looking for a replacement vehicle, I called the insurance company. They gave me the good news that the now totaled Rabbit wasn’t insured. Oh, I had comp and collision coverage- but not volcano coverage. Insurance--what a scam. You pay into it, but when you really need some help, they devise a way not to pay out. However, Allstate “graciously” (their words, not mine) gave me a $250 stipend to cover the rent-a-wreck I paid to borrow. The balance on any new vehicle would have to come from whatever was left over and out of my own pocket.

Mt. St. Helens sucked.

 

It was, however, probably the last major news event that wasn’t instantly covered nationally and globally by cable or satellite TV news. CNN was still a couple weeks from signing on for the first time, so they weren't even in the picture yet (so to speak). Nor was Fox News, CNBC or any of the other now pervasive 24-hour cable news sources. The images and reports the nation and the world saw of Mt. St. Helens on the day of its eruption were all picked up from the local affiliates in Spokane, Portland and Seattle, tracking the eastward drift of the explosion fallout which ended up coating the ground and everything above it all the way into Montana.

In the days that followed, the dust cloud circled the earth, could be seen from space, and adversely affected the climate in the Pacific Northwest for the next several months. It made 1980 the coldest summer I’d ever lived through. It was similar to summer in San Francisco, minus the whiffs of sourdough and the sea breeze. From May 18, the day of the eruption, though late August, Spokane experienced an almost uninterrupted string of cloudy, clammy 55-60 degree days during the time of year when the normal temperature would be 20 to 30 degrees above that. Even when it was clear, it really wasn’t; the blue sky muted by a filmy haze of still migrating ash.

And well into the fall, still under layers and layers of ashen gray soot, the landscape remained something akin to a moonscape. Mile after mile, the familiar green and amber terrain of Eastern Washington was there somewhere but altered; disguised and buried under the remnants of Mt. St. Helens' turbulent innards. The proud mountain itself lost about a thousand feet off its top, the grand summit replaced by a crusty, misshapen crater. At its base, beautiful and pristine Spirit Lake was transformed into an ugly, uninhabitable quagmire, full of avalanche debris and volcanic waste.

And the fallout cost me one perfectly good Volkswagen Rabbit.