Happy Mt. St. Helens Day

Twenty-nine years ago today, I washed and waxed my parents' car by hand.

How do I remember this?

Well, I was about 10 years old at the time, and on a nice day in May, I decided to make our family's grey 1976 Datsun 710 station wagon sparkle and shine. My parents may have made me do it as part of my chores, but whatever. I worked hard on that car all morning. To my disgust, I saw the dark clouds of what I thought was rain on the horizon. "Figures," I remember thinking, "It's just my luck that I wash and wax the car, and now it's going to rain."

Turns out, it wasn't rain.

Anyone who lived in the Pacific Northwest on May 18, 1980, can tell you exactly what fell from the sky that day. It was volcanic ash, as Mt. St. Helens blew 1300 feet of itself off, killed 57 people, wiped Spirit Lake off the face of the map (it has since returned), destroyed countless trees and wildlife, and did all kinds of other damage that you can read about here.

I remember that Mt. St. Helens gave plenty of warning of what was to come, in the form of tremors and little spouts of gas and debris. Every night on the news, experts were pleading for people to evacuate the area around the mountain. Most people made the correct choice not to tempt fate, and they got the heck out of Dodge before May 18. Otherwise, the death toll would have been much greater. I do remember an elderly man on TV, though, and I can even remember his name: Harry Truman. He lived on the side of Mt. St. Helens, and he had lived there for most of his however-many years, and by gum, no one was gonna tell HIM he had to leave his home, dagnabbit! Those young whippersnapper scientists were overexaggerating things!

Rest in peace, Mr. Truman.

My hometown was about 300 miles from Mt. St. Helens, and we got quite a bit of ash dumped on us, including on our freshly washed and waxed car, as our house did not have a garage. I remember it being the middle of the afternoon, and yet it was black as night outside. It appeared to be snowing in May, but it wasn't snow. It was fine powdery grey ash. Dry, it was very light and fluffy. Wet, it weighed a ton. It didn't take long for homeowners to realize how completely screwed they were going to be if it rained. All that wet ash would collapse roofs. Yet it was too light and fluffy to clean up when it was dry, so some water had to be applied. The key was getting the correct water-to-ash mix. And once you got the ash off of everything, then what did you do with it?

I remember my dad donning the dust masks that everyone had to wear outside so as to not breathe in the ash, and carting the snow shovel around from house to house as neighbors worked together to get everyone's roofs and walks cleared.

I remember that when the schools finally reopened, we had to wear dust masks any time we were outside.

I remember that one of my school's teacher's first name was Helen because other teachers had cut out the headline from the newspaper--"Helen Blows Her Top"--and taped it to the classroom door as a joke. I didn't get the joke until my mom explained it to me.

I remember that for years afterwards, you could dig in the dirt and find a layer of ash. My sister, who is college-educated in geological matters, tells me that this will always be the case. Millions of years from now, there will still be that layer of ash in the soil. She could be making that up for all I know. I barely passed Rocks-for-Jocks in college. But it sounds plausible.

I remember all kinds of debate about what the short-term and long-term effects the ash would have on the local crops and on human health.

It's interesting as an adult to read about the eruption and all the havoc it caused when, as a 10-year-old, my primary emotion was anger that all the work I did on the car that day was for naught. It was a pretty unique event to experience, that's for sure. And I'm glad we were 300 miles away.