Brit Reacting to The Most Important Eruption in US History

[@RevPeterTrabaris]

I remember before the eruption, as a child, taking a ski lift up to the top of St. Helen's. Such an awesome experience. One felt as if they were standing on the top of the world. I also remember the moment the news broke into the television programming and coverage of the eruption began. It was heartbreaking and horrifying. The world felt a little less secure in that moment. And, I remember internally cheering when it was reported how quickly the land was rebounding. Great video, Thurston. Thanks Peace

[@Cobalt_Dragon0716]

"Vancouver Vancouver this is it!" Volcanologist David A. Johnston, on the morning of May 18th, 1980.

[@jo.s7993]

Bless him....He wasn't meant to be working that weekend, but his friend asked if he would swap shift's. He was only twenty - six, & they never found his body. I was only a child at the time, & from the UK, but his story hit me really hard for some reason. I'm glad they named the new observatory & visitors centre after him.

[@2HennaHands]

There was a photographer, Keith Ronnholm, that ignored warnings to evacuate the area. He got some of the best photographs of the eruption happening. He knew he was going to die when the pyroclastic flow reached him, so her wrapped his camera in his jacket and laid on top of it hoping to protect the film from the heat. It did, and the photos are available to view today.

[@karenwalters7131]

That was actually Robert Landsburg. Mr Ronnholm survived.

[@matthewgarrison-perkins5377]

I was 6, living in the great plains. It was eye opening for a me, and really grew my interest in the sciences.

[@MarvRoberts]

I was 6 too, but I was in middle Tennessee. The ash cloud made it all the way down here. I remember the windshield of our station wagon had a white haze over it and you could see the white ash 'film' covering the windshield wipers. As the wipers moved, they left permanent arcing scratches in the windshield glass.

[@jop4649]

Mount Saint Helens is considered the second most active explosive volcano in the Holocene period (or the last 11,650 years). The mountain had violently erupted multiple times and some earlier eruptions were larger than the 1980 event. Around 1800 BC, there was an eruption (10x larger than the 1980 eruption) on Mount Saint Helens that sent ash deposits into north-central Canada. In the late 1400s, Mount Saint Helens had *two* major eruptions a few years apart from each other. Before 1980, Saint Helens last erupted in 1857. The saddest tragedy of the 1980 eruption, is that a vast majority of the deaths from Mount Saint Helens, is from people who were outside of the exclusion area but were caught off guard by the horizontal blast (which was never heard of before).

[@nicholasregan6526]

Mount Rainier is an active but dormant volcano. Ive got family in seattle, unnerves me sometimes

[@cloudsn]

Mt Rainier isn't dormant, it just hasn't have a big eruption in a hundred years or so. It's a Decade Volcano, along with other volcanos like Mt Etna and Mauna Loa. But we'd likely have lots of warning before an eruption, they had warning even in the 80s, but the red zone wasn't big enough, and some people ignored road closed signs.

[@carriemilito2851]

I live in Michigan and I remember we had some vivid sunsets after the eruption. Once the ash cloud got high enough, the winds carried it eastward. The sky had a hazy look to it as a result. I remember our local meteorologist talking about it on the evening news.

[@jeffmande4671]

The picture at 2:00 is what I saw on May 17. The two trees in the picture look like they're on a hill. I was over that hill on a logging road. There were two hills between me and the mountain. I watched the mountain for a few hours for any steam or anything. There was nothing. It was totally silent. Not even birds. So I went to Mt Rainier at around 5 pm to take a shower.

[@michaeltipton5500]

I'm from Washington State and it happened on May 18th which was my Birthday so hard to forget that. I went there about 2 years later and could see the complete devastation as far as the eye could see. You can go up there today and see the park and exhibits.

[@pirobot668beta]

I was discharged (honorably!) from the US Army May 16th, was on a plane May 17th, to my home north of Seattle. May 18th was my first morning at home in years...didn't know about the eruption until after noon. I was in Bremerton during the Good Friday quake, in Redmond during the Nisqually. I love it here!

[@rachelmaxwell5936]

There are around 170 active volcanoes is the US: over 140 in Alaska, 6 in Hawaii, and the rest in the Western states, particularly the Cascades, where Mt. St. Helens is.

[@jaspermatty]

Was 12 years old when it Erupted - I lived in a city 260 miles away from Mt Saint Helens - we were having a track meet that DAY - around 1 in the afternoon, the sky became black as night and the ashes rained down on us - we didn’t know what the heck was happening (only land lines at that time).

[@MsTwister57]

I remember this day very well. I was almost 23 and had a husband and 13 month old daughter. Even though I lived in Reno, Nevada at the time we still were close enough to Washington state to have smoke and ash for weeks. I couldn't believe the interviews with some of the citizens who lived close to the Mt who refused to evacuate. Some died from staying. I remember one guy saying he was staying and was going to watch while sitting in his lawn chair. He didn't watch for long. He died from the eruption and no way of being rescued. I'll never forget this entire thing.😢

[@laziojohnny79]

The super-vulcano on Tenerife created two news vulcanos (Pico El Teide & Pico Viejo) that are both inside the giant caldera of the before mentioned ancient super-vulcano. Very interesting place.

[@Fridge56Vet]

Visited Mt. St. Helens in 1990 when I was 10. Was still very desolate; the drive to the visitors center was what seemed like miles of fallen trees either side of the car. Nice to see the area recovering.

[@alanhembra2565]

I remember watching the news coverage leading up to the eruption and then the footage of the explosion and the aftermath. Air flights were screwed for weeks.

[@caribbeanman3379]

I remember my kindergarten teacher telling us about this plane that was badly affected by volcanic ash from the eruption. That was just about 3 years after the incident.

[@MerideeMarsh]

When we saw from our upstairs house window the plume of debris we jumped in our car and drove down from Tacoma to Portland (50 miles west of the mountain on the I-5 freeway) while it exploded. The huge cloud was immense. We still have bottles filled with ash. Had pizza in Oregon that night. It was awesome. MyMr was Nat'l Guard and was sent down help guard the area. They developed some inhaling of volcanic dust lung problems. It changed some parts of the area permanently. It's recovered but different ever since.

[@YasmineGalenornOfficial]

In Olympia, we could see the plume from the top floor of the biggest dorm at TESC. I couldn't get up there b/c I was in a walking cast, and the elevators had been shut down due to dust, (too many stairs for my foot). But it was just...amazing.

[@garygramling5618]

I was in Southern California as a 9 year old when it erupted and I still remember it. Even being so young, I remember how fast the news moved on and I really didn't hear about it for years.

[@Blynat]

I live in Washington, St. Helens blew 4 years before I was born. But you can still just dig down into the ground and find a layer of ashe under the dirt in many places. The entire state got hit with ashe. They was also some old farming equipment at my grandparents house that was full of ashe. Like an old water tanker with the top hatch broken had tons of ashe inside that mixed with the rain water and became like concrete.

[@YasmineGalenornOfficial]

I was living in Olympia (WA) at the time, and was in college. I remember waking up when the eruption happened and my ear popped and I couldn't hear for two days out of it. We had massive amounts of ash falling, and I still have a bottle of it today. It would have been so cool to have cell phones and the net back then. When my husband and I drove down there 20 years later, the forest felt so odd--all the trees were the same height, and I couldn't figure out why until I realized that the forest has all been replanted at the same time. It was eerie. Oh, the volcano is still very active and has erupted a couple times since.

[@Maewolf]

Having lived here my whole life, 86', weve gone almost every year or multiple times a year since i can remember...its grown so much recently

[@williambranch4283]

One of the groomsmen at my wedding, he flew over the crater of Mt St Helens after the eruption. I had a small vial of the ash too.

[@andycofin6983]

I was 20 years old and standing in a patient’s room at Tacoma General hospital talking about Mount St. Helens and looking south west out the window when it erupted. You definitely heard it go, although we didn’t see anything from that view, but the after effects were still just as terrifying. I remember wondering if the event could set off the other volcano’s in the cascades, including Rainier which is east of Tacoma. But my biggest concern was that my sister and my roommate were on the eastern side of the mountains in southeastern Washington and all phone line service was disrupted from panicked callers. It took my sister and my roommate three days to get back to Tacoma as they had to drive way north first before they could come west, instead of simply going west through the passes. Tacoma, fortunately didn’t get much, if any, ash fallout, but one of the friends my sister was visiting was a car detailer, and he made thousands of dollars cleaning ash from cars, RV’s, and boats for the next two weeks. Most people may have forgotten the weather change that summer and fall. I moved to Norfolk, Virginia in late summer and the temperatures were 10 to 20 degrees cooler there as was most of the northeast coast.

[@BammerD]

Mt. St. Helens is the only volcano within the contiguous 48 states that has erupted in modern history with such a destructive force. Her most recent eruptive and active periods were between 1980-2001 and 2004-2008. Her largest eruption in those time periods was the main one in 1980, everything else has been a "burp." Mt. Hood is the closest volcano to me. The last three eruptions at Mt. Hood occurred within the past 1,800 years, last erupting in 1866, from vents high on the southwest flank, without major explosive eruptions. All eyes are on Mt. Rainier in Washington as she poses a significant threat to nearby cities, should she erupt with a similar explosive force as Mt. St. Helens.

[@TeddGCM]

Yellowstone is a "Super Volcano." When it goes, it will affect the entire planet.

[@laziojohnny79]

But it's not overdue as many tend to believe, or want to believe.

[@mattekumba]

Yellowstone would effect the entire planet but it would not be world ending. we survived toba which is belived to have been bigger then Yellowstones two biggest eruptions combined. somewhere in between 4000 and 12000 km³ of tephra.

[@mikeorclem]

that is sensationalism to get clicks in some part...it could blow tomorrow or 20,000 years from now..//

[@LadyBeyondTheWall]

@@mattekumba We *BARELY* survived Toba. There were only a few thousand of us. But also, the death toll when Yellowstone goes is going to be so much bigger just due to how many of us there are now. And less and less of us know how to survive with things like no electricity, during famine, etc. It's not going to be world-ending, but the death toll is going to be gigantic regardless.

[@hlessiavedon]

​​@@LadyBeyondTheWallYellowstone is extremely unlikely to be an explosive eruption. It is more likely to just pump out a bunch of lava and ash. The current prediction for ashfall is around 1000 miles from the cauldera. It will only really affect north america. It might shut down air travel for a couple weeks in northern Europe, but that would be the extent of it.

[@Marcel_Audubon]

this happened the same week I graduated from college ... changes to Mt Saint Helens were reported on the nightly news every day for a couple of months before the eruption, so everyone in the nation was waiting for it to happen

[@2l84t]

Was outside having a coffee listening to the birds singing when they suddenly went silent and the Southern horizon roared .

[@ryancampbell2192]

I remember as a kid, a local factory in my hometown, 2100 miles away in mid-state Illinois had considerable amount of ash on its roof that had to be washed off before the weight affected to integrity of the roof...it was crazy to think that the weather patterns blew ash that far away from the eruption.

[@Packermadman-ow6rt]

Went there 6 years ago and what an experience. So awe inspiring and sadness inducing as well. The museum on sight covers everything you need to know about what happened. A hiking trail from the museum takes you out to view the volcano crater and you are able to see the vast amounts of trees still laying on the ground looking like matchsticks strewn in the direction of the blast.

[@anniebalsbaugh2093]

I was 12, I remember reading the news paper about this in Michigan, we experienced beautiful sunsets due to the ash

[@John-q5p9m]

I remember this clearly. It took about 3 days for the ash to make the skies in New York City grey.

[@MichaelScheele]

I was 9 when Mt. St. Helens erupted. I lived about 100 miles (160 km) south of Mt. St. Helens at the time. Due to wind patterns, we saw very little ash - just a light dusting of gray ash. Slightly more than a decade later, I moved to the Seattle area. Video of eastern Washington towns/cities being darkened by copious amounts of ash was shown on every anniversary of the eruption. Various glass objects made from Mt. St. Helens' ash are still sold in Washington. Virtually everyone who was around at that time remembers the day. About ten years ago, my father and I visited the area around Mt. St. Helens. The juxtaposition of areas still showing signs of decades old devastation and the areas where nature had re-established itself is jarring. Few things drive home the power of nature more than seeing the scope of the land affected by the 1980 eruption.

[@agatehuntress499]

I've been there three times, and the beauty is incredible, but also almost painfully haunting; an evocation of reverence that you can feel.

[@Gashouse69]

I live in the Southeastern U.S. only a few hrs from the coast and I can remember the smoke and ash covered the sky and partially blocked the sun here for over a week.

[@RogCBrand]

There are 169 active volcanoes in the U.S. Most are in Alaska. Also, Hawaii, Washington, Oregon, California, as well as Yellowstone.

[@willcool713]

I was actually on the mountain with my insane father, the day it got serious, when the glacial melt and groundwater finally boiled from the magma intrusion, and there was a steam and ash explosion that went miles up into the stratosphere. I remember looking up at the towering plume of steam as we were hightailing it out of the restricted Red Zone and thinking that I hadn't realized before how far 'up' actually went into the sky. There were no seismic warning yntil right about when it happened, because it was just the water finally boiling off. And there were earthquakes they said, but it was more like a constant low growl you couldn't hear, but you could feel in your chest and feet. By the time we got to the town of Cougar it was pitch black like midnight, at 3 in the afternoon, and evacuations had everything jammed like rush hour in a major city. My dad had an expensive camera and every free chance we'd been up there, inside the danger area at a clearcut, wearing surgical masks to not breathe the ash, itching all over, taking automatically timed photos of the intermittent steam puffs, so he could sell them to the Oregon Journal newspaper -- or so he said. It was a school In-Service Day for me and a "faculty day" at my dad's University, a Thursday, I think. That time it covered everything with ash for like, isk, a hundred miles maybe. There were a couple more of those, eruptions with ashfall, before the big one. Everybody had to put nylons over the air intake on cars, so the ash wouldn't clog air filters or do worse. It was super abrasive and ate away paint on everything. I remember seeing a fully blank metal Stop sign sometime after the mountain totally blew. Ash was heaped everwhere for months. They used snow plows to clear the roads. There is one infamous clip of footage from the time of the blast, from on the mountain, a cameraman narrating his stumbling through the blasted hellscape, fully believing he was going to die, scared for his life, trying to escape the smoke and hot ash and flames and pyroclastic bombs, on foot. I hope they show it in this vid, I havent seen this one before.

[@susanhunter9196]

They didn't really expect that type of eruption. One scientist told them it wasn't going to be a normal eruption from just the top. Sadly, he was killed when Mt. St. Helens erupted. There were people camping, and working in the forests that day but, no one expected to be that big. There is video on KZbin of the actual eruption.

[@jamesleyda365]

I was 6 years old when Mount Saint Helen's erupted. I lived in Eastern Washington state, Moses Lake to be exact and at noon it turned black as midnight, i was so damned scared. Gotta say too that my grandpa was a logger at this time around the St Helen's area and my my mother knew Harry Truman that ran the Mt St Helen's lodge. He was buried alongside his lodge on that fateful day of 5-18-80🤘 my family still camps on the south slope of the mountain to this day.. IT IS AN AWESOME PLACE, SO DAMN BEAUTIFUL 🇺🇲 and on Windy Ridge at Helen's you can see 3 more volcanos being Rainier, Adam's and Hood🌋

[@mattekumba]

check out his (What if Mount Rainier Erupts Tomorrow?) video its great well all of his videos are.

[@scottpatton6315]

its cool you watched this my grandmother told me stories of when my mother was a kid when mt st Helens erupted they gathered the ash when they lived at fairchild airforce base in eastern washington and since my grandfather was in the military they went to american bases across the world when they went to Hawaii they sold the ashes from mt st helens to the locals.

[@rburton76]

I was very young, but still remember it raining ash in Southern California after the Mount St Helens eruption.

[@huntercarter2073]

I honestly thought this would be Eddie Van Halen's live solo of "Eruption"...

[@burnout_2017]

There are great videos detailing the eruption also, and some about spirit lake and those who lived around it. Would be cool if you could react to those if possible. Enjoyed this one though...

[@L2PlayJ]

Watch a video on it during the days it erupted and you'll get amazing stories. This is neat from a quick summary point though.

[@impresarioe6824]

There are 65 active volcanos in the continental US (does not include Hawaii).

[@license2kilttheplaidlad640]

If anything this certainly reminded me that im old lol i remember that well.

[@TeddGCM]

I remember as a child seeing this.

[@Blynat]

Spirit Lake is still full or old waterlogged trees. It was only 44 years ago. It takes a while for thousands of trees to rot in water.

[@laziojohnny79]

Why were they never taken out of the water?

[@wryalways985]

My mom swears that ash from Mt. St. Helens reached Manitoba.

[@d2ndborn]

It is amazing how if we leave Mother Nature alone she can do anything.

[@vodkarage8227]

Without volcanoes and tectonic plate movement, the earth would be completely flat eventually, not even a bolder, all thanks to gravity. As deadly as these things are, they give our planet character.

[@Marcel_Audubon]

Hawaii is not outside the United States, it is one of the states.

[@chibiprussia5574]

I've been here and it's beautiful..

[@jckdnls9292]

Luka I remember whne u started ur utube channel when u were like 11 yrs old reacting

[@mikeorclem]

maybe marilyn monroe' dad.

[@Blynat]

This guy's channel also has a good video about mount rainier in the same area.