May 18, 1980--A Defining Moment

Whether it’s good, or bad, remembered by one person or many, there will always be defining moments in each person’s life.  Like many people living in this area, May 18, 1980 was a day I’ll always remember; the day Mt. St. Helens erupted. 

I attended Clark College at the time and was the entertainment editor of the college paper, The Progress.  While that last sentence probably wouldn’t mean anything in ordinary circumstances, in this case, it’s a large part of why I remember this event so well.

There were several months of “maybes”, and “possibilities” before the mountain actually erupted on this date thirty-one years ago.  Newspapers, radio, and TV stations broadcast the latest news about the mountain daily.  The slow news days would bring the “side stories”; for instance, Harry Truman, a gentleman who had lived on Mt. St. Helens for years.  He said he wouldn’t leave the mountain, even if he was ordered to.  His wife and family were gone, and he’d rather go with the mountain than leave it.

The retail business got in on the whole thing as well.  Overnight, “I Survived Mt. St. Helens” t-shirts, and other things were showing up on store shelves; and being sold almost as quickly.  I received a t-shirt as a gift at the time.

I also remember the radio stations in the area picking up on Jimmy Buffett’s “Volcano”.  They played it a lot, because it seemed to fit the situation so well.  It was kind of cool to have a song we could call our own.

After awhile, people seemed to think the mountain was a joke.  Some believed the mountain wasn’t really going to blow; it was all just media hype.  Others thought it would be cool to see it erupt.  No matter where you went, people were talking about Mt. St. Helens.

As mentioned earlier, I was part of the college paper at the time, and taking journalism.  Our teacher, Sydney Craft-Rozen, had been an editor at the Columbian, and her husband still was at the time.  Needless to say, we did spend a lot of time discussing the mountain and how it was being portrayed in the media.  At some point it seemed like everyone had written something about the mountain, except me.  As the entertainment editor, I decided to write a “review” of Mt. St. Helens’ “performance”.   It was totally tongue-in-cheek, and not meant to be printed. 

The review told how the mountain kept making promises of a big performance; yet, didn’t follow through with the promise.  I remember my overall rating being something like, “despite the grand beauty and presence of Mt. St. Helens, her performance is lackluster.  Instead of exploding and grabbing the audience’s attention, the mountain just blows a lot of smoke, and fizzles out at the end”.   It was funny at that time, and fit in with everything else that was going on.  It was just one more joke about the mountain, among many others.

Luckily, as stated earlier, the “review” was not intended to be published in The Progress, and it wasn’t.  In hindsight, I’m very glad of that.

My “joke” didn’t seem funny at all on the morning of May 18, 1980.  A lot of things didn’t seem funny that day, or in the days to follow.

I remember exactly where I was when I learned that Mt. St. Helens had erupted; I was at work, and my parents called to tell me the news.  At that point I had a flood of emotions, and guilt.  Guilt about joking around about the mountain; sad for those who had died, everything mixed together.   

On my way home that afternoon, of course the radio stations were talking about what had happened.  I just listened; absorbing all the information I could; trying to understand it all.  Then, one station played Jimmy Buffett’s “Volcano”.  I just cried and got angry.  What had seemed like such a great song before was just tacky then. How could people still make jokes, play that song, everything, now that the mountain had really erupted?  I didn’t understand at all, and it made me angry.

I spent the rest of that day in front of the TV, listening to reports and seeing all the film footage from the mountain, and other places that had been affected.  The Toutle River looked like someone had emptied a box of toothpicks into it.  The difference, there was no box; and the “toothpicks” were actually trees, hundreds and hundreds of trees being swept down the river.

The ash had moved to the east after the eruption.  Newscasts showed the city of Yakima, Washington around noon; it looked like midnight, there was so much ash.

I also had trouble wrapping my head around the fact that 2000 feet of Mt. St. Helens was gone. 
The actual thought didn't sink in, until I realized I lived at 1100 feet; that's 900 feet lower than the entire amount of the mountain that was now gone.  All I could think was, "wow!"

The following day, during journalism class, we talked about all the aspects of what had happened over the past few months, and the eruption itself. 

Reid Blackburn was a photographer for the Columbian at the time, and good friends with our teacher and her husband.  He’s one of the people that died on the mountain that day and our teacher was having a hard time with it.

From a journalistic point of view, everyone in the class had their perspective on things, like the photos in the newspapers.  The front of the Oregonian that Monday had a black and white aerial photo of a truck almost buried in ash and sediment.  In the bed of the truck was the body of a man, who was obviously dead.  Some in our class thought it was too graphic to be in the paper; especially on the front page.  One student though said it was that photo that brought the reality home to him.  Seeing someone in a photo, and knowing they were dead made things seem more real.

Another topic of discussion was a question of how many people died because of Harry Truman?  The decision was made to let him stay in his home near Spirit Lake.  This caused others to stay, or go up to the mountain as well.  We, (the class), wondered, if Harry hadn’t been allowed to stay on Mt. St. Helens, how many others wouldn’t have been there either?

After class, I had even more emotions raging around inside.  I felt for our teacher, I still had the guilt about my “review”, just so many things I needed to get out.  I went home, and poured everything into an opinion piece, and turned it in the next day.  Writing it out helped me to feel better, and helped me to express to others why I felt the way I did.

It’s been thirty-one years, and it still feels like yesterday. Every May 18^th all the raw emotions come flooding back, and I remember all of it.  So, much like that college day so long ago, I’ve written this blog for today.  It’s in memory of all those who died, for all the emotions that still come back; just for everything in general about Mt. St. Helens.