27 Years Ago, The Earth Opened Up I

The anniversary of the Eruption of Mt. St. Helens came and went last Friday and I didn't even mention it--I was busy with Howard Ashman songs. (Ash-man? Hmmmm.) But it was a significant event in my life and I remember it vividly. At the time I worked at a small radio station in Longview, Washington, about 40 miles away from St. Helens as the crow flies. There had been a lot of seismic activity on the mountain, a bulge was starting to appear on its north face, and folks were expecting an eruption of some sorts, but unsure of exactly what that might consist of. Lava? Flying boulders? Poison gas? Certainly, a lot of ash of a sorts. Several teams of geologists and the Department of Emergency Services were nervous about it, and watched the twitching of their seismographs like they were tarot cards. And they got about the same accuracy of what the future would hold. They could only wait. And wait. And wait.

For those of us in town and the radio station, it was a waiting game, too. All that could be done was keep in contact with the DES, and keep an eye on the horizon. There was some small controversy in that, owing to one station-owner's being a crony of the local cops and the local state senator, the area's official emergency broadcast station was the only one that went silent at sundown.* Our station was on 24/7 and we loudly griped to anyone who cared that if the mountain erupted, it had better do it during the day if they wanted to use the EBS system effectively. No one paid us any mind. "Sour grapes" I'm sure they thought. But the waiting was a bother. The mountain was evacuated of residents just to be on the safe side--the famously curmudgeonly Harry Truman wouldn't budge, and he was allowed to stay--but, after weeks of being away, a lot of them started demanding to go home and collect some things they thought they'd need for an extended absence and that weekend, the Folks In Charge relented and let residents in the evacuation area to go back to their homes.

And of course, that was the weekend the Mountain blew. 27 years ago, last Friday.

57 people died. They were either fried, gassed, disintegrated by the shock-wave, or a combination of those and then buried just as quickly in the Earth's efficient fury. Ashes to ashes. Dust to dust.

My sister claims that she heard it all the way in Seattle, 200 miles away. I don't doubt her. I do know that 40 miles away I didn't hear it. The cone of the blast was facing away from Longview, and the cloud of ash was carried by the winds to the northeast (that day), but I was awakened by a phone call telling me St. Helens had erupted. I only had to look out my front door to confirm it. A large cloud of boiling steam and ash was vaulting straight up out of the mountain, and the best way I remember it was that it looked like a roiling brain in the sky. It was truly a frightening sight--malevolent in its crusty look and potential for causing damage. I turned on the TV to a Portland, Oregon station where the anchor on duty was flusteringly trying to fill time while having no facts about what was transpiring. He did mention that Longview was "knee-deep in lava." From my vantage point--in the middle of Longview--I could confirm no sign of that (nor was there any, ever), but I see that guy on a local Seattle affiliate every so often, and I remember the "knee-deep in lava" speculation. This was before the home-video boom, but I wish I had a tape of that newscast to send to him--the jerk.

I worked as a disc-jockey and advertising producer at a Longview radio station, so I headed over there to see what was going on. The news director had been doing a Sunday morning public service interview program when he looked out the big windows facing the main street to see the mushroom cloud rising up. Thus endeth the interview. The news director could be a little panicky, but he held it together and did a formidable job of keeping information going at a time when people wanted information...fast. I checked in to see if there was anything to do, but was told to come back later in the day--I might be needed to spell people if the thing kept erupting for a long period of time.

My girlfriend (Hi, Sandra!) and I were heading to a rodeo her family was holding, and we were going to spend the day there. But it was pretty apparent it wasn't going to be a normal rodeo. For one thing, people kept looking at that cloud in the sky getting bigger and meaner all the time. Then there were the Huey helicopters--the ones with the rotor blades that make that percussive chop through the air--making an appearance every fifteen minutes or so in waves that brought to mind the attack on the village in "Apocalypse Now." Those frequent helicopter pass-overs spooked the horses, so before long it was decided that, between the nervous horses and their nervous riders, that the rodeo was going to be a short one. We headed across the river for lunch and some beer and noted the increased traffic going across the Toutle River bridge that connected the cities of Longview and Kelso. Folks were probably trying to get out of town, though there was no need--monitoring the newscasts there was no evacuation plans mentioned. A couple hours later we crossed that same bridge going back, but it was a complete different sight-- the river was jammed to a standstill with timber, whole logs sitting in the middle of the river not moving at all. Brave souls were risking life and limb trying to unsnarl the tangle and keep the river navigable...but one could imagine that wouldn't be a reality for days. This was timber blasted from the mountain and pushed into the river by a current of mud. It was just the opening salvo of what was to come...something I would see that night and never forget.

We went back to the radio station, and was told that river levels were rising. I was sent out in a news-car to drive around and follow the river...and if I saw any section starting to flood, radio it back to the station so they could start evacuating the residents. Pretty heady stuff. There were all sorts of rumors floating around. Bodies being found--folks killed not by the pyroclastic flow from the mountain, but from the toxic fumes that literally fried their lungs. Large sections of mud were collecting in nooks and crannies of the river that would change its course unless it was dredged--a process that began almost immediately. Today, you can see large, grassy, hummocky hills along I-5 in the area. Those hills are made up of volcanic ash dredged and piled up along the banks of the river.

I drove around the city that night, driving along the river-roads watching the water rise, but never crest. Parts of the area closer to the mountain had been evacuated, but the towns of Longview and Kelso were staying firm. There was no need to move...yet.

About 3 am, I drove back to the Toutle River Bridge, got out of the news-car and wandered over where a small crowd was watching the river as debris from the devastated area was still making its way down-stream. It was an eerie sight: in the white glare of the search-lights piercing the dark, you could see an endless parade of people's lives being washed away. Finally, a house in ruins came down the river on its way to the Columbia River. It was devastating to see that. Later that night, as if a furnace had turned off, the rumble of Mt. St. Helens died down--the volcano had stopped erupting. For awhile we could relax.

For those that survived, life went on. President Carter flew in to survey the damage (famously saying "The Moon looks like a golf-course compared to that"), and for awhile, it was exciting to be so near the Big News Story--"Volcano in the U.S.!" But, by the end of the week, things were settling down.

27 years ago today, I worked my daytime Saturday shift, finished, and stuck around to do some production work--which took me all day--then I was going to be working the evening shift, too. We'd gotten into a pattern where two people would be on the air: one at the station and one at DES. I was happy to work another shift--I wanted to record an air-check that I could use to cut down and use as a demo for the hunt for my next job. Who knew how long this one would last with a volcano next door? I had been awake 18 hours by now, as evening stretched into overnight, but I wasn't feeling sleepy or even tired. Mark, one of the other DJ's, came over to while away the time. Bucky, another announcer, was at DES. Another radio night-owl was there, too, as I recall. Here it was 3 am, and it was like it was daytime during the week with all the visitors in the control room.

Then, I got a panicky call from Bucky. The volcano was erupting again, a few hours shy of a solid week after its first eruption. A few minutes later, it was confirmed that the volcano had lit up again, and those of us at the station steeled ourselves for another day of coverage like last week's.

Bucky called again from the DES--this time, the ash was coming our way. He was starting to panic...

More tomorrow....

* There is a limited number of broadcast frequencies, and stations have a varying degree of power. The FCC regulates all this cross-talk in the ether by requiring some stations that have a conflict in frequency to "go dark" at approximately sunset, or at least, reduce power. The EBS station in Longview at the time was one of the stations that completely shut down approximately sunset.