It Went! It Went! - Tales From Mt. St. Helens

Or. Were you here when the thing knowing you were not. With the wife though is OK. I'm quite. Frankly sick. You. Look outside.

Your friend. Like you. Really are going to talk to Helen. We went in to check on the property. And clean up the place we've visited Truman course. We were the last of the team at the lake. He. Was in pretty good at a place cleaned up manicured ready to go that people didn't really get me down. Proper. We got there on Saturday night about midnight laid out our sleeping bags and

went to sleep as best we could I don't know I didn't sleep very well I don't know if it was premonitions or lumped in the ground that we were awakened by a roar. The next morning and a week ago we had been out there and we watched the mountain do about 30 little poofs all afternoon and it was beautiful. And then we thought this is what was happening again. We thought Oh and all of a sudden it just grew so fast. The crowd just boiled and boiled they were just gray clouds and they just started coming toward us and we knew that the big blow in about 30 seconds we were in the car and there in the car. He got down almost to right like when the ash started to fall and it was

oh I would say thumbnail size black on the windshield and every time one of these balls would hit the windshield it sounded like it was cracking the windshield. We stopped a couple of times to tell people that the mountain had blown up and they'd better get out while they had a chance. And nobody seemed concerned. That they hadn't seen what we had seen. And now we even met a pickup a small courier type pickup with two guys in the front. And two guys sitting in lawn chairs in the back. They were heading up the mountain. As we were coming down. And I we've really been wondering what happened to them if they turned around in time or. I don't know because it seemed like just seconds after that that the ash started falling. Very good. Dark dark dark. And. Raining

raining. You know the other door the door. I got a real. Thing on the. Street. You're you're you're really

rude on the very man who no. One. Anywhere near you. Kept going. And going you know. Meet here before we get. To the field you're going to get here in a moment. You're going to write a good narrative on that going down. Never never fear works without a create the trouble.

Man. Well we had a period like a mile west of Spirit Lake and far as I can tell now a center of about 300 feet of debris from that came down Saint Hill and we haven't had a chance to fly up there. Or look at it or so but it's pretty devastated. Everybody has got to fit you in when you see it anyway. But we're still waiting for the chance and it will be a while where the actual phone around here. There were trees cracking the wall and wave my rabbits bleeding animals moaning.

A lot of wood damn trailer a semi trailer truck Howard-Browne for the neighbors that you hit clear over here a bridge. That bridge by. You know if I sat here and gave you an account of the last week it would take a week tell you because the event happened that I can give you a very little. You.

Know I did I could see how the mad my mother had come this far from that volcano. But all the canyons in the valley the knack for. Life. Oh. You're

you're. You're. You're. And when you're. Oh my God I mean you know like you have really. Not very good to run

around. Right here. Oh yeah yeah. Done running. They never covered volcano management in force requested it. It's often. A new experience and there's been no books written on how to manage a national forest with an active volcano. Everybody is learning and. Growing day to day. The people that live up here that are you know are kind of adventurous people to begin with you know and I think that probably it will pretty well settle back down. It's going to take time and it's going to your ideas. It is affected our whole lifestyle because it was a logging community and I don't think you're going to

help a lot of that last from now on. People are afraid of your thing going off again. Are you afraid of you know not really I'm concerned about and I think everybody is going to be compared with what the devil you can be afraid of everything you know you've got to take one day at a time and just kind of live it it felt if it happened it happened. If it don't why what the devil are you here afraid of everything you know you would be able get up from or you wouldn't be here. What's it feel like to be right next to you know the dinner of attention and the country and give it to him. Well I don't know either fashion or thought really I think we got something that somebody else for that I think they can go ahead and have me think that British.

And. It had to happen some place it did here and that was my go to make the best of it as though we've just been given a sentence like cancer or heart disease you're going to live so long we don't know how long people will avoid that area for investment. They will have no incentive to invest they will be afraid to invest. You don't know where my personal plans are to retire in the boy and leave the area you know in a geologically stable area right near the Canadian seal. I don't think that. At all threatened to hit me now and then I think I'm back in the lake and flash them back and then all the time that there and I'm just thankful that death already did what they did to keep people out of there.

Were. Built didn't they even allowed to live. They'd opened it up there could have been hundreds. Down. It was absolutely horrible. I I've never been full fare in my whole life. You have to think that in the war I dream about it all the time. Night before last I dreamt that Mt. Rainier erupted. It just kind of. I had to shake the everything through. I'm really not mad. Would you have any idea where you do know that way. Or not really just taken every day has it become kind of eerie feeling. What did follow all around it then the possibility of continuing that act. Yeah. Kind of in limbo. Oh. Ya.

Oh.