IT’S THE ANNIVERSARY OF MOUNT ST. HELENS’ ERUPTION

As a kid in elementary school I remember watching the news and talking in class about the volcano on the west coast known as Mount St. Helens. I was in 1st grade, but it wasn’t a hard concept to grasp as cartoons of the time made it seem that volcanoes were a major plot point to work with and that if one exploded around you you were going to die. Simple. The scientists and the news were actively watching as the mountain swelled and an eruption was eminent and that people refusing to leave were going to die. The strange thing was seeing stories of people refusing to leave the area. Did they not watch Saturday morning cartoons?! Stories of the ash cloud carrying ash far to the states east of Washington was not uncommon. I found it interesting that AccuWeather was sharing a timeline in a series of tweets documenting the explosion and satellite images of the explosion that killed 57 people. The interesting part to read is that residents and business owners were pressuring the government to let them back in which could have caused “hundreds to thousands” of deaths. What would we do here if a bluff suddenly became an active volcano?

At 8:32 a.m. on May 18, 1980, the walls of Mount St. Helens’ top collapsed, setting off the largest landslide in recorded history. The entire north flank quivered before appearing to almost liquify. https://t.co/zjt9voh9g2

— AccuWeather (@accuweather) May 18, 2022