The Mountain Erupts (1980): A Mount St. Helens Special

[@lethrbear32]

I'll never forget how beautiful it was before 1980. The most pristine forests, crystal clear lakes, and streams, the deer, elk, and chipmunks that would eat right out of your hand, even going up to the timberline turnaround on the mountain to innertube down the snowy slopes. The drive up from Kelso was just as beautiful. I remember a small community named St. Helens on the bank of the Toutle on the way up. The bridge you see mangled and buried in mud used to sit there. It was moved at least 2 miles downstream...and that was just the beginning.

[@marked4death076]

I wish I got to see it before, but born in 83.... although I'm still mesmerized by the area even now, it has a peaceful but odd feel to it that I've never experienced anywhere else, other then maybe around Mt shasta

[@lethrbear32]

@@marked4death076 Mt Rainier is very similar to the way St Helens was.

[@marked4death076]

@@lethrbear32 I could see that, I grew up in seattle so Rainer is more familiar to me then St Helen's even though I have been to the foot of st Helen's around 6 times, I have never went up close to Rainer.

[@marked4death076]

@@lethrbear32 I just can't imagine the vibe St Helen's had prior to the 1980 eruption, because unlike Rainer, it's kind of out in the sticks, even from Portlands perspective people see Mt Hood first, and in Seattle they see Rainer you know, but St Helen's was the wild one

[@boomernoname3032]

Wear i live longview Kelso are we 17 18 wood drive up that road late at night its pretty up there i was born 81 it blow win my mom was pregnant

[@jerryloufretz1797]

I worked for the USGS at that time. For the Puget Sound Earth Sciences Application Project. Our geologists had been monitoring the mountain for months. The eruption was more violent than anyone expected.

[@annaksfrog]

40 years ago. I remember the horror, lives lost, science learned, and the light cover of ash waking one morning in my sleeping bag in Puyallup. Honeymooned on that mountain too, and, recently seen life come back to the moonscape. It remains part of my life.

[@pon2oon]

I remember the deep red sky sunsets in Indianapolis that year.

[@johnchedsey1306]

Gotta love that early 80s synth music and graphics. Thanks for digging this up! I visited the area last week and it's amazing how green and back to life the area is after just four decades.

[@aaronjhill]

The music is overbearing and terrible. The director is a talentless hack.

[@SirKolass]

The whole place still a wreck, grass and bushes don't need decades to grow, but most of the affected area is dead.

[@TheLittlered1961]

I could not agree more with aaronjhill. I could only make it 8 minutes before I shut it off. The music sucks, narration sucks and the editing sucks. Then again I would not expect more from King 5 or NBC. Seen far better videos on Mt St Helens.

[@johnhpalmer6098]

@@TheLittlered1961 Two year old comment, I know, but this is for everyone else that stumbles on this documentary, It was actually shot prior to the eruption, and the day of the eruption, then footage after the eruption and then assembled into this piece later that same year, yes, 1980. So this is what/how things were back then on the local level in broadcast history then. Not defending it but taking into account WHEN it was done. Yes, there is likely other footage that may be better but all of the footage used here was from news footage, and some of that may be from film still (16mm), but a lot of that was early ENG (Electronic News Gathering) video footage, using 3/4" tape, and shot in standard def, but this documentary was also upscaled to 1080 (1920x1080) resolution for YT from the standard def 480 4:3 aspect ratio material so the footage has softened some. Again, take it for what it was, in 1980 and appreciate it for that, a documentary of a huge volcanic eruption.

[@TheLittlered1961]

@@johnhpalmer6098 Your name sounds familiar. You work/worked for a Seattle tv station? I am not a spring chicken. St Helens went when I was in College. My favorite shows on tv today where taped in the 70's or earlier. You talk about the tech/quality of the video. I was talking about the quality of the production. Two completely different things. Editing has nothing to do with the quality of the video. Narration has nothing to do with the quality of the video. Music has nothing to do with the quality of the video. King 5 News is a garbage station. I have watched many of their docs. Living in their broadcast area for the last 20 some years you can not convince me otherwise. This is not saying that the other stations here are much better.

[@CC-te5zf]

Such a compelling reminder of how fragile life is and how our time on this magnificent planet is but a flash. This certainly stirs the emotions. Thanks for sharing.

[@nandep2149]

I remember the day well; my family had been camping and left the area before the explosion. Our house and everything was covered in ash. It's incredible that it's already been 40 years. ⛰ Thank you for sharing this great documentary. 😀

[@dawnwelch6579]

I was 11 years old, living in Des Moines WA (top of our hill on S. 216th St. very close to Hwy 99), a sunny morning watching television that morning when the channels broke for the sudden news. I think one big thing that stuck out was how the news were saying the ash was traveling massive distances and was getting onto people’s cars. I went outside to look at our green Buick station wagon - and it already had a thin covering of ash! I hollered for my brothers and our mom! Later that afternoon, we heard that the eruption was visible from the Kent Valley, so mom took us kids and a couple neighbor kids (they were our friends) over the hill and down into the valley. Everyone else had the same idea - all their cars were parked everywhere and just staring at the south...and sure enough, there was a GIANT smoke plume! The sun was still out where we were at up north, but down there? Oh man...

[@deadfreightwest5956]

It's weird, you and others around the valley report of ash, but honestly, in Tacoma, I recall none at all.

[@beafreeall7953]

we were south of spokane at friends when we first noticed the odd looking 'cloud', we went in and turned on the tv. yep the mt. blew..so we got in our car and tried to out race it back to town...it over took us and others on the freeway...dark as night, ash coming down like crazy it looked like a blizzard...we limped back to our house....ended up in lock down for 3 days, vacuuming our pets after each time they went out to potty...shoveled ash off the sidewalks...wore masks...there was no getting thru to the west side on the phone..all circuits were 'busy' , so we couldn't check on our families...finally after 3 days we got a hold of a few air filters for the car and headed north up to highway 2 to get across...when we got to the west side it didn't look like any ash had touched them, until we saw the toutle river highway crossing and the downed trees and sludge...we made it to our families house to find them just fine ...then the next day...we woke up to find that the mt. had poofed up again and this time dropped ash on us again....in longview...my heart still breaks when I see footage of the mt. blowing up and the devastation left behind...loss of life, loss of way of life...

[@mikel917]

Wow. Obviously very traumatic for you and yours. Thanks for sharing.

[@SirKolass]

@@mikel917 No, it was sure one of the great times for him

[@nomad4k]

Thank you for sharing that tragic yet somehow, in a non weird way (I hope), incredible experience. That’s a once in a few centuries event you described there, and it happened in your lifetime. I was born approximately 4 years and a month after this event occurred, on 14 June 1984.

[@nerdaterp]

I was living in SSE Portland at the time. I will never forget the scene

[@j.hawkins7282]

All we could think of at the time, as fellow woodsmen on the N coast of Oregon, was how lucky for all the crews working in those forests it didn't hit on a Monday.

[@marked4death076]

Would of been hundreds if not thousand more dead. GOD works in mysterious ways

[@m.woodsrobinson9244]

Hard to believe forty years have come and gone. The eruption of Mt. St. Helens was the first news story I clearly remember.

[@StephenLuke]

RIP To the 57 people and thousands of animals who were killed in the 1980 eruption of Mount St. Helens

[@JuliusCaesar888]

Lmfao and the millions of insects as well and the billions of leaves and grass who were also just enjoying their day.

[@rogermolina1244]

First time ever seen this video 😲. I remember when Mount St Helens erupted, I was in the 6th grade here in California and since then have fallen in love with volcanology. I never got to be an volcanologist but thanks to Mount saint Helens my love for volcanology as a hobby is a permanent part of my life even though I've never been to see St Helens in person but I've have had the privilege to visit the Yellowstone volcano in Wyoming many times!

[@antonraterman2281]

I was a junior in HS. I walked in the house and immediately saw the coverage on TV. My Dad had to told me what had happened. Tragic but also nature has no boundaries

[@antonraterman2281]

Tell

[@StandedInUtah]

I remember watching the floods on TV and having school canceled for days. I was in North Central Montana on the eastside of the Rockies and ash crossed over the Mountains and dumped on us. We had to wear face masks to go outside. We knew something was going to happen but my ten year old self was fascinated by the size and scale of the eruption.

[@marked4death076]

So you got the ash bad, much worse then people west of st helens or south, i love when i meet someome who was in portland and they talk about the ash haha litereally people on east coast got more ashfall then just south.....esp compared to eastern washington and idaho or montana

[@StandedInUtah]

@@marked4death076 I was 10 when it happened but I can still picture it. It "snowed for 3 or 4 days". Once the ash cloud passed the wind blew it all away. The Rockies protected us a little so we got less on the Eastside of Montana than those on the Westside of Montana. The prevailing wind is from West to East. The ash went East with the wind. It would have been a rare winter wind that blew North to South. I lived in Salem as an adult and winds from the North happened occasionally in January not May. Portland wouldn't have gotten much ash due to wind and distance.

[@deadfreightwest5956]

It really pisses me off when people shame Harry Truman for the choice he made. He made his life there on the mountain. It was all he needed or wanted.He took nothing from nobody. I guess some of you aren't old enough to know his generation, what I call "old growth folk". These people had nothing to start with, and faced everything that would take that away. They had to survive, to build, to overcome. He wasn't selfish, how could he be? He asked for nothing, he noted the efforts on his behalf as misguided, yet honest and true. His life was the mountain. And so was his death. You should applaud him for that. May you have such a fitting exit. As Frank Sinatra sang, "I did it my way." Better that than death by vegetation to the enrichment of the "care providers".

[@aprilrichards762]

Harry Truman stated that "Mt. St. Helens is a part of Truman and I'm a part of it." He died as he wished. We should all be so lucky.

[@IARRCSim]

@@aprilrichards762 if Harry Truman was lucky, I hope to be unlucky.

[@user-mv9tt4st9k]

I remember reading about Mr. Truman. I believe he knew what was coming and he chose to face whatever it brought.

[@aprilrichards762]

@@IARRCSim We all die. Harry Truman was able to choose his death. It would have been quick. Of all the deaths, I'd consider dying due to Mt. St. Helens

[@allewis4008]

He was a WW1 vet, he was 83, so he didn't have a lot of time anyways and his wife was buried there. That lodge was his paradise and was fine staying.

[@benscoles5085]

I was a senior in high school, one month to graduation, when I heard that the mountian blew up all I could think of there was some big money to make cleaning up that mess, I wanted to go out with a logging crew, and see those big trees, 40 and a few years later watching this and other vids, I am glad I did not go.

[@solmma]

Wonderful music!

[@aaronjhill]

Are you drunk?

[@THEdjpluto]

0:32 probably the first time I’ve ever seen it erupting in realtime

[@RDog4484]

THEdjpluto Me too! I’ve been studying this since I was a kid in the 90’s. Here I am in my 30’s, shocked at finally seeing some real-time footage.

[@marked4death076]

And that's from a good distance away, imagine 6 miles away must of looked like 1000mph

[@Zoomer30]

The eruption was inevitable. The bulge was moving out at 6-10 feet per day ( a insane amount considering how slow geology usually is). It was only a matter of time before it " gravitationally failed" (landslide) and when that happens, it unloads the magma dome underneath the slope which is like take a cork out of a shook up wine bottle.

[@deoglemnaco7025]

I was raised in Selah WA during this time. When the ash came, my dad put us all down into the shelter (the ark he called it) it was under our lawn. He would have been known as a prepper today He was a deeply religious man, and we spent many many years in the Ark. during that time, I was charged with repopulating the world and subsequently bore a child with both my mother and my sister. Sadly, we didn’t know the world was fine above us. In what you know as 1994, my dad felt the earth was safe again, and tunneled his way out of the Ark. only to be shot to death by the homeowner who bought our house many years ago. I try to lead a quiet life now, but when I see videos like this, it really brings me back.

[@eganchorre]

Loved watching this, good reporting. The film should be rescanned.

[@deadfreightwest5956]

19:06 - Good grief, Jeff Renner! Jeebus, I feel old now.

[@oshimad]

NES RPG boss fight music

[@uncletacosupreme7023]

Its crazy because on the scale of what we know is possible for stratovolcanos, st Helens wasnt even that big.

[@BushyHairedStranger]

The tree planting crew on St.Helens that morning took some unreal photos. Images no human being would expect to take and survive. Absolutely awesome unsafe close up shots. Webfoot Forestry was up there contracting for Weyco(Weyerhaeuser)

[@marked4death076]

They did an amazing job, been up there maybe 8 times from 1990 to 2021 and those trees are looking amazing.....almost looks back to normal

[@SpaceKruezer]

Amazing footage

[@user-mv9tt4st9k]

In Southern California the ash from the eruption rendered the sky a sickly yellow-orange and dropped in tiny bits. It seemed like a long way for the wind to carry it.

[@Sara-gl8ue]

6:50 What an eerily beautiful clip of a bird singing amongst the devastation.

[@alexandermichael117]

The mighty power of nature,no one can stop it,or predict it.

[@MarsHock]

How can I get the soundtrack to this? Love these 80s synths.

[@gustavopacheco919]

The synthesizer music reminds of Apocalypse now.

[@Nippertrain]

I had fun helping Cliff Lenz put that together. The organ was recorded at St. Marks cathedral, a good old Arp String synth, myself on percussion, and Vern Nicodemus on flugel. Fond memories of cramming all that into a broom closet of a booth at the old KING building.

[@LieuCifer]

@@Nippertrain siiiiiick!!!!

[@aaronjhill]

Not even close. An insult.

[@josephastier7421]

Reminded me of 1970's porn movies.

[@GrahameGould]

Definitely a horror movie feel to the music. Quite appropriate.

[@kamchatka-wb2xr]

Cool documentary, but the aspect ratio here is wrong. It was clearly originally 4:3 ratio, and here it has been stretched to fill the widescreen format. So the mountain and people all look unnaturally wide and stretched out.

[@BudSchnelker]

Imagine the footage we'd have if everyone had a phone with a 4K camera.

[@martharetallick204]

I was living and working in Michigan. A few days after the eruption, the ash blotted out the sun.

[@thomasjess6131]

I was fishing on the Cowlitz river the morning of May 18, 1980. We didn't hear the blast because we were lower than the blast wave. We're we surprised when we left the river after Lewis County Sheriff's announcement on the loud speakers!

[@Zoomer30]

I can only imagine how current tech would have handled that eruption. Webcams broadcasring 24 hours a day. Twitter tracking every hiccup. Satellites being able to measure the bulsve from space. Automatic stations that would not require direct human monitoring (No Coldwater II basecamp looking right into the shotgun). Better seismic stations. In a nutshell, BETTER data and no need to risk lives.

[@charlesburgoyne-probyn6044]

Lives would still be at risk but people could be better warned part of the problem was that nothing as powerful had happened in the area in living memory and hence people find it hard to comprehend. In it's way despite the prelude being freely reported on so many people in Europe thought Russia wasn't going to invade Ukraine because that hadn't happened in Europe for effectively living memory for most people

[@budg8522]

From that Sunday morning through the next 72 hours very few of us at KREM 2 News in Spokane...or any other of the print or broadcast journalists in the Northwest...got much sleep. Simpler times then...no demands to take down roadblocks...no constitutional rights debates over wearing masks... the ash was neither red or blue....just seemingly endless, depressing gray.

[@aaronjhill]

How long did the roadblocks last? Three months? Of course not.

[@deadfreightwest5956]

Too right, Bud. Carter certainly didn't declare St Helen a hoax or complain about inheriting a disaster from the previous administration, nor did he say it was the fault of the governor of Washington who lacked foresight... then again, it was Dixie Lee Ray, so I suppose that would've been reasonable. We were adults back then, even us kids at the time. smh

[@aaronjhill]

@@deadfreightwest5956 Harry was not forced from his home. He was allowed to stay. Today, now we are forced to stay home, which is basically house arrest. We have the Bill of Rights for a reason. You cannot just suspend the 4th Amendment because someone declares an emergency.

[@quietone748]

@@aaronjhill Forced? Hardly. Asked to stay home? Yes.

[@marked4death076]

The fact nobody listened to david johnston who basically was watching the mountain move 6 feet a day out the side, is wild to me.... but its not like we had social media to infiltrate everyones mind

[@leegoldeneagle9003]

I lived in Astoria at the time

[@GojiKaichou]

I love the use of Claudio Simonetti and Goblin's music from the St. Helens movie soundtrack in this...

[@Saltynutz333]

Mount Saint Helens eruption 🌋 on May 18th, 1980 was awesome to see but sad it took the lives along the way. I am sure this sleeping giant isn’t done from erupting again. 🌋 I wonder if they will ever find Harry Truman remains when he was swept away. I don’t know why he didn’t evacuate as “Mother Nature” always wins.

[@deadfreightwest5956]

He made it clear: This was his home, his way of life. What the mountain gave, it might take away. So be it. He was a true man, hence his name.

[@allewis4008]

He's just microscopic pieces of bone now, at rest under 300 feet of stone and the water of new Spirit Lake. Scientists estimate he had 30 seconds warning before the landslide bulldozed it's way through his lodge.

[@brandonsavitski]

I bet Harry Truman screamed like a little beeyotch when he got blasted by whatever took him out (pyroclastic flow most likely). Probably 💩 on himself hearing the roar coming closer to him. I don't pity him or feel sorry for him. He wasn't brave. Just an old selfish, stubborn quack job who received his deserved fate.

[@justatrailer7807]

we were loading the car to go fishing and i heard distant thunder, looked up , blue sky . we did go fishing and as the day progressed the sky became hazy,got home and there was a thin coating of ash , it came all the way to the okanagan and beyond

[@community1949]

The only things that came from this eruption is that it taught volcanologists that what they found on other eruptions in the past didn't take hundreds of years to cause but maybe just minutes or hours.

[@satanslovechild6458]

Great movie

[@eecforeststewardship640]

wonder how many of those vehicles driving around in the ash were ruined

[@markthomas6980]

Boy, the background music is beyond weird. I know it’s 40 years old but this is so different..

[@pete3050]

Humans are nothing compared with mother nature

[@phtogamer8396]

0:34 wow😮😮😮

[@Brian_rock_railfan]

liked video 👍😮🌋

[@Jitzer2]

Was the driver still in the blue car in the video?

[@NinjaBat-111]

I had a dream about 7 months ago about a volcano erupting and I saw the mountain with snow and the lava coming down and people running in hysteria packing the train to get out of there. Everybody was thirsty and screaming while there was ash falling all over. After this dream the Iceland volcano erupted but I couldn't see a train in that area. Mt. St. Helens is the one that is clicking for me. Anybody in the area please stay alert.

[@unicornsandrainbowsandchic2336]

This soundtrack brought to you by Prog Rock(TM) edit: it is a really good documentary and I still remember this event being so sad even though I was only 5 and in California. But this music is very ELO-ish

[@debbiebalnaves8660]

i lived out in portland ore when mt st helen. erupted ... i was out of town at the time we were hearing that portlandad a lot of ash fall .. news coming out from surrounding areas was not very good .. called family and friends to get information

[@63mlya]

I have a jar of the ash from that eruption...

[@michaelmiller6675]

Kotal Khan brought me here

[@mine_crafting]

People it’s like what just happened right now

[@amateuryoutuber]

0:33

[@cMARVEL360]

The music they add to content from the 80s is so freaking Obnoxious, it's Insane! Weren't the Humans of the time bothered by the strange sounds people were trying to pass off as Music?

[@janaburritt6939]

Just think how crazy it will be when the cascadia fault freaks out

[@briane173]

The PNW isn't ready for that and won't be. My sense among government and the private sector is resignation, because the cost to retrofit every man-made structure to resist an earthquake of that magnitude is prohibitive and probably futile, especially along the immediate coast. I couldn't have picked a more tectonically active and dynamic area in which to life than the Pac NW. It's beautiful and awe-inspiring, but that beauty has manifested itself violently, on a scale we can't comprehend. Not sure I wanna be around for the next Cascadia megaquake or for when Mt. Rainier explodes.

[@maryjones6039]

These documentaries about 1980 Mt St Helens are so interesting but omg the soundtrack is just un-listenable.

[@davidwalterhughes2258]

They say Rainer is ready to blow any day

[@SumDumGy]

How’d that work out?

[@seanconnors9912]

1:27 Does the music remind anyone of the Dante's Peak theme?

[@nathanwebers1221]

It's an interesting theme spun in different ways throughout the video. According to the credits, the music was done by Cliff Lenz. Cliff Lenz hosted a couple shows on KING-5 including "Seattle Today" and "Music Magic" (of which, I remember the latter).

[@Nippertrain]

It was indeed Cliff on St Marks organ, synth, and guitars. Myself on percussion, and Vern Nicodemus on Flugel, and a broom closet of a booth at the old KING building.

[@aaronjhill]

OMG, people have such poor taste.

[@deadfreightwest5956]

What's Dante's Peak?

[@markrowe8824]

@@deadfreightwest5956 it's a film

[@grasshopperfiddler]

Whoever did the music for this ought to do a soundtrack for the Trump administration Press conferences

[@quietone748]

This comment brightened my day :)

[@Sara-gl8ue]

He lives rent-free in your head, doesn't he? Looks like the media has done a fine job of brainwashing people into behaving just as the book "1984" described. Unless, of course, you've finally figured out within the last four years since you made your comment that the media has been playing with and manipulating your mind but I won't hold my breath.

[@cathompson23]

I mean, seriously: is the music in the background of this video even necessary? The music is too creepy. Watching the historical video footage of Mount St. Helens erupting is terrifying enough without the creepy background music, KING 5. Are you actively trying to give me nightmares?

[@KING5Seattle]

Sorry, Charles!

[@reefsroost696]

@@KING5Seattle I thought y'all did a pretty good job, all & all.

[@nandep2149]

Agreed. The video is great, but the music is distracting, creepy and too loud at some points. Thanks KING 5 for the video, though. :)

[@McSlobo]

What? Great 80s vibe sounds.

[@KING5Seattle]

@@nandep2149 Yeah, I can see that. 1980 editing styles, I guess.

[@pvtread5207]

Am i suddenly playing a zelda game with this music

[@michaelmiller6675]

Volvagina has been resurrected

[@beafreeall7953]

Harry was not a hero, he was a rude and abrasive person that if a guy had his hair touching his collar he called him a 'hippie' and would not rent a row boat to him....until he got all the attention ...meh...

[@davidlafleche1142]

Harry Truman committed suicide. The state was going to steal his land ("Eminent Domain"), and he could no longer maintain the Spirit Lake Lodge, anyway. So he stayed there, rather than give in.

[@aaronjhill]

Who is calling him a hero?

[@allewis4008]

Being an old grumpy war veteran is not a crime. Harry left this world as a man.

[@zacster311]

Me in 2019: Crazy that they had to wear masks back then. Me in 2020: Their masks are so plain and boring.

[@robshreds1]

Why are we watching this 😵

[@annaksfrog]

40 year anniversary.

[@robshreds1]

Ok, I was 2 🧸

[@dawnwelch6579]

Pretty dang fascinating stuff!

[@deadfreightwest5956]

@@robshreds1 - Amazing! What are you now, five?

[@beafreeall7953]

you need to adjust your bright mode...that opaque 'haze' over much of the film is terrible...meh

[@TeachAManToAngle]

Bea FreeAll - double meh!

[@johnnybaughman7593]

What's with the creepy vocalizing

[@aaronjhill]

What terrible music! Ruins it. Whose decision was that? Like a soap opera from the 1950s! Who directed this?

[@BushyHairedStranger]

Your mother

[@alvaldez4237]

Cry me a river