An Unpublished Life is Not Worth Living: 27 Years Ago, the Earth Opened Up II

I was working an overnight shift at a Longview radio station. I'd been up for 18 hours. A call came in from DES that the volcano was erupting again, and our person stationed at DES was starting to panic. (My name's Friday. I carry a badge)

Those of us hanging around the radio station at 3 in the morning were a little alarmed at how Bucky at the Department of Emergency Services was handling the news that St. Helens was erupting again (and that the prevailing winds were bringing the ash our way this time), so we made a switch--Bucky would come in and handle the radio station, and I'd go to DES and man our little remote station there. While that was going on, Mark would hold down the fort 'til Bucky showed up.

I went over to DES, and found a beehive of activity. I stayed out of the way. I went over to the side-room where the Longview radio stations had their little ouposts and saw the other stations had people already there. Impressively, the rock station had their news director there, while the other one--the EBS station that only operated during the day--had the station owner's son who was friendly with local police. The two of them were talking when I walked in. I saw no need to interrupt them, so I sat down at our station and started to organize. The news director walked over and introduced himself. I waved at the other guy.

Every so often, we'd get a bulletin from DES and when the station would "swing" to my location I'd give them an update of the situation, which usually meant I'd find another way to say what I'd set 15 minutes before. The three radio stations were in a side-room with no windows, so it was easy to appear calm during all this--you couldn't see what was going on, and the only news you got was from the DES guys walking in and handing us a bulletin--one bulletin, we'd pass it around and share. By now, the sun had come up and all three stations were on the air, and it was interesting to hear what was going on from my radio station. There was a constant recap of what had happened, the repetition of what to do "in case..." and reports from various officials who would call in and pass along information--all with an underlying tone of urgency. By now, most of the on-air staff was there, and it was impressive to hear the number of people who got involved. Our news department had increased to two with our news director and one of the salesmen who had a background in news (Jon had pulled two coups during the previous week's eruption by getting Pres. Carter's attention when he came out for his visit--"Longview radio, Mr. President. Can we get a few words?" and the President ambled over to him and spoke for a few minutes--and, also talking his way onto one of the Huey helicopters combing the area during the initial blast). I felt slightly removed from it all at DES, but you got the impression that the falling ash was creating problems throughout the city and beyond.

Then the power started going out in pockets of the area. Ash was getting into transfer stations and gumming things up. The news director of the rock station threw down his head-phones and announced "We just lost power." Woh! That wasn't good. Then, fifteen minutes later, the EBS station went dead, and I was the only game in town. The activity in DES was starting to increase, you could hear shouting going on in the main room. The door opened and one of the officials handed the EBS guy a sheet of paper. He looked at it. "These are the evacuation routes!" he said. He just stood there, holding onto it like he had to. The news director looked at him. They both knew I was the only station still on the air. "Give it to him!" said the news director, and, chastised, EBS guy handed me the paper. I could then tell people where they could go in case the city needed to be evacuated. Nice of him to give it to me.

Things started to get interesting. From what I could hear, there seemed to be increased activity in the main room at DES. Monitoring the radio station, I suddenly heard Bucky yell, "We just lost po...!!" then crackle away to static. At the exact same instant, the power went out at DES, and everything went dark. "We just went dead, too" I announced to the room, and in the dark the voice of the news director said laconically, "Well...that's that." We'd reached the end of our broadcast day...at 10:30 in the morning without so much as the National Anthem.

I had a flashlight, so we could still read bulletins...but it'd only be for our own entertainment. The generators at DES kicked in for the main room's emergency power, but the radio-room was still dark. I'd been in that little room for nearly 8 hours, so I got up to stretch my legs and take a first look outside.

It was eerie. The sun had come up many hours before, but you'd never know it looking at the sky. It was dark outside, a thin slip of blue on the horizon being the only indication that it was actually day-time.

And it was raining mud. Without the eruption it would have been a rainy day in Longview-Kelso, but the addition of ash and dirt in the sky combined to make a slightly heavier, dirtier downpour. The cars in the parking lot were all grey with it. It was going to take a hell of a clean-up to deal with it all.

That's the end of my story--I was "spelled" at DES about 2 in the afternoon, clocking my work-day at the station at 30 hours. But the best story of the day wasn't mine. It was the radio station's.

It had lost power. I heard it go down. But the only part that had lost power was the studios. The transmitter, located miles away on a golf course, was still operating, sending out a signal with nothing on it. The station's engineer (who, ironically, had been let go the previous month) roared up in his jeep, and did two things: he drove the program director to the transmitter and created a simple microphone set-up--literally plugging him into the tranmitter--and allowing the station to continue broadcasting, and then he drove to the local auto parts dealership and bought several car batteries, and hooked the studios to them to make a temporary generator. Greg, the PD, had to be a on

e-man show for a little while, but if there was a man alive who could do it, it was Greg. Soon, the station was operational,too. There were little inconveniences--the lights on the phones weren't working so you had to keep punching lines to see if there was anyone on them--but for all the city knew the station was completely operational, and that was all that mattered. I heard all that from my little perch at DES, and it was an incredible show. But not that many people know that story--you'd think it would have made the local papers, but, hey, there was a volcano erupting next door.