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Yesterday (May 18) Was Mount St. Helens Day......

Horse Plains Drifter
I'm a day late, I kind of spaced it yesterday. May 18, 1980......40 years.....hard to realize it's been that long. I know a fella that lost a brother in that blast. One of the 57 people who died.



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Comments

14 comments

Date Votes
  • toad67
    I remember standing on the roof of the house as a kid in Oregon watching it.... Remember all of the ash???
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  • Horse Plains Drifter
    toad67 said:
    ... Remember all of the ash???
    Why yes I do. I lived in Montana then. It took the ash 12 hours to get there, and we got 3/8"-1/2". That was quite something to experience, but I don't need to experience that again.
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  • papernicker
     I was, sort of ,in that area of Wa., shortly after, and remember fine ash everywhere. Loved that beer
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  • JimmyJack
    You can see the Mt. from my daughters kitchen window.
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  • NeoBlackdog
    I heard it from the campus of Blue Mtn. Community College in Pendleton, Oregon.   
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  • Junkballer
    JimmyJack said:
    You can see the Mt. from my daughters kitchen window.
    Hopefully they'll never have to see it from her rear view mirror........ ;)
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  • kimi

    Remember the ash very well. Sky turned from clear blue to pitch black.

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  • dpmule
    Different places in Western Wyoming got from a dusting of ash to 1/2"

    Mule
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  • chiefr
    I was living near Rapid City, South Dakota at the time and the ash was serious enough to halt all flights into the local airport and the nearby Air Force Base. Visibility was around 1000 yards.
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  • dreher
    I could not believe that the ash was still in the air when it got to NW Ohio.  It affected the sun for a couple (?) of weeks.  It has been a long time since it happened but my memory is weeks not days but I could be off a little, or more than a little. 
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  • Don McManus
    Lived outside of Spokane, WA at the time.  Was in a line of about 100 cars waiting to go into Fairchild AFB for the annual Memorial Day Air show when the show was cancelled.  Went into town for lunch and when we left the restaurant it was pitch black and snowing ash.
    Got about an inch and a half at home.
    Ran an open cab John Deere 55 harvester that summer north of the little town of Ritzville, WA where they got between 4" and 6" of ash.  I think I am still digging ash out of my ears 40 years later.  The novelty wore off after the first day, and the stuff was on the ground for years in some places.
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  • KenK/84Bravo

    Was on Lowry AFB in Denver when it happened. Lots of ash. Dark skies.

    Climbed Mt. Rainier in the 80's, we were glassing Mt. St. Helens when we got above tbe clouds. Crater was very evident. Would have been quit a show to have been on Mt. Ranier when it happened.

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  • kimi
    Yep...Our little Rocky Bird passed away on May 19, the anniversary of the wreck we had gotten into a day after Mt St. Helens erupted.   Life is truly strange...mostly in a good way.
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  • spasmcreeksrun
    here in south central kansas some days after that we got a light coating of the ash..and south of me about 25 miles is a place out in a field is a 14' layer of ash from the volcanoes in NE New Mexico that was laid down ??????  years ago   we hauled that back  up here to mix with asphalt for our blacktop roads..was an addition of fines to act as a binder
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