Tap to unmute
Footage of the 1980 Mount St. Helens Eruption
Embed
- Published on Jul 11, 2025
- On May 18, 1980, the Mount St. Helens became the largest and most destructive volcanic eruption in U.S. history. By the end of its cycle of fire and fury, 57 people had died.
From the Series: Make It Out Alive: Mount St. Helens
bit.ly/MtStHele... 
Entertainment
My dad was the Sgt. In charge with the Washington State Patrol and personally closed the park on May 17. He spoke to 39 of the 57 people who lost their lives, trying to get them away from the volcano but they were outside of the mandatory evacuation zone. My Dad's Lt. told him to have breakfast with the family and then report for duty. We had waffles and a huge breakfast because we hadn't eaten or spent much time with him due to the volcanic activity. If he had gone into work at his normal time he would have been on the volcano when it erupted. My Dad is and forever will be, my hero.
That's so sweet. I feel very sorry for all the lives lost. Your father is a very lucky man
Oh yeah did he count and remember all 39 lol
I salute to your dad.
@Infernrage Only a Liar beliving that all Peoples lie !
patrick elder yolo
A guy gave his life to get sequential photos as the mountain side collapsed. His camera was dug out of the ash along with his body and they are sensational photos that, pieced together, give an incredible view of the mountain side sliding away. And you Smithsonian, didn't use them. Well done.
Brave individual
This is the real cameraman
Gary Rosenquist and Keith Ronnholm survived though.
source pls
@@Jonandtan69 gee thanks
My late wife was growing up in 1980 in Montana and she told me a lot about MSH and the eruption. As she put it, "it was dark for days" as a result of the ash floating in the air. I personally had heard about the eruption down here in Florida, and before she died, she told me to watch all the videos about MSH here in her memory. I'm happy I did. Thank you, Sarah. I love you always.
HERE is Our TRUE Savior
YaH The Heavenly FATHER HIMSELF was Who they Crucified for our sins and “HERE IS THE PROOF”
From the Ancient Egyptian Semitic:
"Yad He Vav He" is what Moshe (Moses) wrote, when Moses asked YaH His Name (Exodus 3)
Ancient Egyptian Semitic Direct Translation
Yad - "Behold The Hand"
He - "Behold the Breath"
Vav - "Behold The NAIL"
😭😭😭😭🥰
Do you think that being near that could’ve had any negative impacts on her health that may have cause her untimely passing? Just curious.
@@user-of2kb3nw6k
I think it's likely. The ash was really toxic.
I remember seeing this on TV. The mowed down trees are still there to this day. Cars were burned out and stuck in the ash. There was an elderly man
named Harry Truman who absolutely refused to leave his home that was in the explosion zone. The geologists think his home fell about 80 feet into the ground with him in it. He was killed, of course.
Proud to be the 100th like
200 miles away from our home in Seattle, classmates and I on a field trip were trapped for three days in a small town gymnasium. The National Guard rescued us, but not before a local woman walked through the ash storm to bring us food. We called her Volcano Mary, RIP
Jeez imagine schools taking you on a field trip 200 miles away.
What a great woman, rest her soul ❤
Wait she didn't die getting you food did she?
@@moisesm9602 Mind you this was in college but I once road a bus for 24 hours straight for a quiz bowl tournament in Minneapolis, coming from Northern Alabama. We also went to Chicago when I was in highschool on the highschools team which wasn't exactly much closer.
@@historicalaccuracy15 No, she pushed a cart about 2 blocks from the little grocery store. She was elderly, it was 40 years ago, I can only presume she's passed on.
My grandma, (We live in WA) when she heard the boom of the eruption, said, as a joke, "Mount Saint Helens probably finally blew up." And it had.
BRUH
Omfg that’s iconic
my grandpa collected dozens of jars of ash thinking they would get rich
@@pikangules we have a few jars too haha. my mom lived about 2 hours away from the mountain when it erupted, and she said it was almost as dark as night for days
@@zilksie9902 Yeah it was...I was 12 and living in Eugene, Oregon and the streets, cars, buildings got covered in a layer of ash.
My mom was born in Washington in the 70s. She said that she remembers her dad having to shovel ash off of the roof all day to stop their house from collapsing
wow, how close were they?
probably 80 miles or so.
Was she hot
@@rayanhazima9068 bruh..
@@rayanhazima9068 nice question man
Note to self: Never buy property anywhere near a volcano
Note to self buy property on a volcano that has been inactive forever but is still warm
(Free heat in the winter)
How do you change your icon
Location, location, location
You need volcano insurance
Buy a house in Hawaii there are no volcanos there!
Over 40 years after the event and much of the devastation area still has no trees growing.
That’s weird because volcanic land is usually extremely fertile isn’t it?
@@battistoberhoel8839 In a longer period of the time those areas will grow back far more lush than they were before the explosion. Nature is very resilient, it just needs non-human time scales to bounce back sometimes
@@battistoberhoel8839 Around the base of MSH is a bunch of ash and no forest.
So hard to believe over four decades has passed. It seems like just a handful of years... 😺💕🐾
I was there a few years back and we could see elk and some smaller vegetation starting to grow in some of the more distant areas. Gave me some hope.
For how deadly and large the eruption actually is, 57 deaths isn’t bad. Edit: I’m not saying 57 deaths isn’t bad but it could’ve been much more.
Matthew Maddox If it had happened the next day, the death toll would have been in the hundreds.
I just sayed that in my head before I seen your post
There was a lot of warning, of the 57 some wanted to stay and not leave their homes and believed they would be fine.
People still died
Still 57 to many
I visited years after the eruption.The sight of all the leveled trees,the fallen timber still covering a good part of Spirit Lake's surface,the sight of the crater...it's chilling.
I live in a prairie Canadian city 2900 miles away from the blast. I was absolutely amazed as a kid when ash from Mt. St. Hellen’s landed on my street at night. I asked my dad if it was snowing and he told me it was from the valcano that we were watching on the news.
Did snow blowers work on the ash or would it just clump up? People further north probably used them
Incredible
Same in Boston
@13_cmi the eruption was in May.
Guys, HERE is Our TRUE Savior
YaH The Heavenly FATHER HIMSELF was Who they Crucified for our sins and “HERE IS THE PROOF”
From the Ancient Egyptian Semitic:
"Yad He Vav He" is what Moshe (Moses) wrote, when Moses asked YaH His Name (Exodus 3)
Ancient Egyptian Semitic Direct Translation
Yad - "Behold The Hand"
He - "Behold the Breath"
Vav - "Behold The NAIL"
Learned about Mt St Helens when I was in first grade and became completely fascinated by the event. 30 years later, still am.
I distinctly remember all the ash that fell on my car in Kansas City, incredible
Same here in central Canada. Everything was covered in ash. Our lungs/sinuses were filled with it, too.
Kansas City? That far east?
@@lifeofabronovich7792 the wind blew it across the whole country
@parallel blocks blocky uh, this happened in 1980
There was ash from it in Russia, too.
Damn mother nature, you scary.
Thanks for the in depth analysis there
Dont piss her off
Tell the government that.. If you look at Yellowstone you can see oil pumping operations damn near right next to Yellowstone.. them fracking and causing them 2.2 magnitude earthquakes. One day they gunna trigger a big earthquake then point finger at us. Kinda like how they can test drop radioactive bombs and say we are the reason for global warming. When they are destroying the ozone.
Earth to mother earth: Why are you scaring them and killing them?🌎🌍😢?
Mother earth to earth:BECAUSE THEY'RE DESTROYING YOU DON'T YOU SEE THAT??!!???
Sure Why no
Scientists: it will likely erupt in a vertical eruption
Mt. St. Helens: *you fools, you fell for one of the classic blunders*
IMA FIRIN MAH LASER
@@CamBMakinBread That’s a classic.
Inconceivable!
Never get involved in a land war in Asia?
@@abrahamlincoln9758 A classic blunder for sure but only slightly less known is: never go in against a Sicilian when death is on the line!
I was three years old when this happened. One of my early childhood memories. We lived near Portland, Oregon at the time and I remember sitting in my families back yard, watching the eruption column going into the sky, and casually eating cereal. I think it was golden grahams. 😊
It was fun yeah?😂
I have a clear memory from 1987 when I was seven years old eating golden grahams for the first time. It was the first time I had ever had any kind of sugar cereal.
Im 43 and I still buy golden grahams if Im going to buy a sugar cereal. For some reason it doesn't taste the same though as it did when I was a kid.
How did you cram all that Graham? 😂
The kid in the back of the class with the modded vape
Lol
No.
Don’t give me hope
Ah, the good ol days
Tarkus nice I like Emerson lake and Palmer aswell
I guess I’m awful cuz this made me laugh so hard.
You forgot to mention David Johnston, for whom Johnston Ridge Observatory was named. That was exactly where he stood on that fateful morning, recording his observations. What a sight that must have been to behold. In his last call to Vancouver to announce the eruption, you can hear the excitement in his voice, even as he is overcome by the pyroclastic flow. He died doing what he loved.
Johnston Ridge Observatory was not built where Johnston stood. His family opposed any construction where that site was, so they built it 1,700 feet further up the ridge.
His last words were Vancouver Vancouver this is it.Johnston view is up near windy Ridge.
"Vancouver! Vancouver! This is it!"
@@RyanSmith-dd6otlast recorded words…
recording instead of running or driving away FAST, not smart.
One of the most memorable events of my life. I was traveling down I-5 about two months after this happened. You couldn't really tell much from the west so I decided to take a drive to the mountain, went past all the roadblocks and warnings (hey, I was in my teens), came out on the other side and was absolutely blown away (no pun intended). Coming in from the west it was nice and green, but on the other side it was literally miles and miles of rock and mud (a swath of grey). Glad I got to see it but knowing 57 people died made this a solemn moment.
Liar! Pun was totally intended!! lol!
I visited Mount St. Helens a few weeks ago. Me and my dad hiked across the wasteland below the north face. It was amazing finally experiencing something I'd only heard about or seen in videos.
We also saw smoke coming from the mountain, which proves its still volcanically active. If it erupts again, it will likely form a second smaller cone inside the first, similar to mountains like Vesuvius.
There’s already a lava dome inside it
Pretty amazing only 57 people died from _that._
yeah amazing how many deaths are prevented when people listen to experts.
David Johnston is a hero
Mt St Helens is not in a populated area
probably because barely anyone lives near it
Lol you clearly did not see Pompeii's history
I lived in Ohio when this happened, but originally had gone there from Washington. Professionally, at this time, I reported to a college provost who was a professional Ph.D. geologist, in fact, a vulcanologist. I recall going to the parking lot with him a few days after the eruption, armed with scotch tape, and picking up some of the exceedingly fine, but visible, ash from the eruption that had made it to Ohio. Seeing it highly magnified under polarizing light was beautiful and striking. These tiny particles were gnarly, rough, jagged, looked like they went through a war. Which they did. Very impressive.
We all know that earth just popped a pimple.
Atomic Giraffe a
Ha
LOL
and there was still stuff in it
Atomic Giraffe basically
I lived north of Spokane WA about 30 miles. I will always remember that day. It sounded like a sonic boom, and shook the house. We were over 200 miles away. By afternoon the blackest dark cloud came over and dropped more the a inch of ash on us . It was every where, in everything! It was very crazy. I will never forget may 18 1980.
(Yellowstone) *Hold my beer*
ツwhy u bullie me 🤣🤣🤣
I wish I get to see that. I’m just far away enough that I might not die 😂😂😂
@@drboone357 actually Yellowstone Hotspot is entirely different from what the Hawaiian Hotspot. Yellowstone Hotspot will be explosive like Mt St Helens.
@@fatboynip well Yellowstone is a Super Volcano and when it erupts it may affect most of the world. if you live in the US it will affect you either way
Ernesto Gastelum west coast Canada. I believe in roughly 1700km or just over 1000 miles away. Also have the Rocky Mountains as protection....?
Title: Footage of famous Mt. St. Helens Eruption
Video: three and a half minutes of computer models and ten seconds of cropped video footage
lol I thought that too!!!
Agreed, top comment stuff here.
Total clickbait.
People in the 80's didn't have smart phones like we do today. All you're going to get are small clips.
Well, it is the Smithsonian channel.
I'll never forget the first time I visited Mount St. Helens back in 1995. I was born nine years after the eruption; my family took us to Washington to visit some relatives that live in Seattle. During our trip we went to see the volcano, and let me tell you, it was astonishing. All around us we could see nothing but barren land, it showed us just how powerful mother nature could be. I'm 32 years old now, and this video got me thinking of that wonderful trip I had all those years ago. I looked at some current photos, and made me happy to see the greenery starting to come back. To this day I often wished I could've seen Mount St. Helens before the eruption. I remember my mother told me that she and her family once took a trip there back in the early 70's; they went swimming where the old lake once sat. She told me it was one of the most beautiful places she had ever been to.
My grandpa in boulder CO had ash on his porch from this eruption. It blows my mind how intense this eruption was. I feel like it’s exactly how Vesuvius was back in ancient Pompeii. I’m obsessed with these types of volcanos
I'll never forget this day. I remember going up the mountain to innertibe down the north slope at the turnaround. Seeing it now is like being in a different place. Those forests were so pristine, unspoiled, and the clearest waters you'll ever swim in. Now it's an ashen wasteland that is a far cry of what it once was. It's pretty hard for me to go up there now with my favorite places gone, and knowing that many people lost up there are just now part of the landscape. My Aunt knew two people that were killed in the eruption, Terry Crawl and Karen Varner were her classmates, and she hasn't been back since before it erupted. I also still carry some scars.....39 years later.
Are You from Cougar?
The scary part
When Yellowstone goes if full eruption, it's going to make Mount Saint Helens event look like a firecracker
And this eruption destroyed a side of a mountain
Theprfesssor 😱
Theprfesssor if Yellowstone erupts forget about destroying side of a mountain your destroying the whole western US.
CCJ Guy it’s said it would plunge the world into a 80 year winter.
LegacyEnds yup it would block out the sun. Hey at least it would stop Global Warming lol
LegacyEnds more like 20 at most
My dad was 10 years old when it erupted. He's a historian born and raised in Vancouver, WA... He had been in the blast zone the day before with his family. Despite evacuations, access restrictions, and road closures, my unorthodox, reckless grandparents took their kids anyway. Whilst up there, my dad actually asked if it would ever erupt. My grandmother chuckled and said "Not in this century." It erupted the next day. They were actually on their way back to the same spot early in the morning when it erupted (day trips, didn't camp). My grandparents never believed Mt. St Helens would have a massive eruption; all tremors and signs of an eruption were false alarms for minor activity. Yes, they didn't care they were endangering their own lives and their children's lives, because they didn't believe there was anything dangerous, despite the warnings and restrictions. It shouldn't be a surprise my dad to this day still struggles with my grandparents about childhood trauma.
This is a repost of the same story with additional clarification I didn't originally include clarification, because it didn't dawn upon me that some people would accuse me of fabricating this interesting story of my dad's childhood, probably because of my grandparents... If you want more of an idea of what kind of people my grandparents were, mostly my grandpa, he'd drag his kids along whilst he fished all day in the woods... They'd be there close to midnight, and they'd have to build a fire and huddle together for warmth, also hungry and thirsty because my grandpa wouldn't pack anything for them. Sometimes my grandma would come and occasionally pack hotdogs, but only bring her thermo with coffee and nothing to drink... Lol my dad says they had good Christmases, but they hardly got baths, because my grandpa has a weird thing about saving water. Kids would avoid my dad when he was a kid because apparently he smelled.
TMI
@@severetiredamage6754 i disagree
how much adderall have you taken today?
My grandmother always kept extra food and taught my dad how to dress do laundry make food etc in the dark at night with no lights on, so that they could survive another war without major disruptions to their lives. Anyone who had a sense of intelligence after WW2 knew another one was coming sooner then later. Many people don't understand habits of desperation while others sadly its all they know. The world wars were triggered by a drought and a great famine, water costs money so many reasons for many families to have built up mental trauma about these things. Our problems don't go away because we blame the older generations or leave it up to the new ones to deal with. We must be the change we wish to see in the world. Sometimes, it means watering the trees when everyone else believes in letting it all burn because they have "insurance" if a fire happens. The main herds are quite insane...survivors never forget.
What I thought Vancouver was in Canada
My grandma lived in western Montana at the time and she came out of her house the morning after the eruption and said “I couldn’t see my car because it was completely covered in ash”. RIP to all 57 people who lost their lives to the eruption 🕊️🕊️🕊️
Too bad they don't show what it looked like right after and what it looks like now.
I remember going there on a field trip as a kid and its pretty amazing that that mountain basically exploded minus one mount wall side.
Now there is a baby volcano slowly building up again in the middle of a giant hole where the mountain used to be.
I live about 40 minutes from mt st Helens. I was born in 92 so I only know the new look of the volcano. While rummaging through old photos I saw a picture of my dad standing in front of it before 1980 and didn’t believe that was what it looked like before the eruption. I don’t know why my little kid brain thought it could explode and not completely change the look of it 😂
Im gonna go this sunday
I think
That is correct. Also, it has a glacier forming next to the small fumarole that is gaining size every year due to being shielded from the elements because of the remaining half of the original peak. If that ever goes off, the resulting lahar will be way worse than 1980.
WaRFaM_ClaN interesting. I didn’t know that. Is that why around 2005 they were so worried about another eruption?
It’s very fascinating
Mt. Saint Helens is 'bout to blow up and its gonna be a fine, swell day
Ben Goecke lmao 😂
Everything's gonna fall to the ground and turn grey
All of my friends, family and animals are going to run away, but me, I'm feeling curious, and I think I just might stay
Lu Valour all these business suits I just purchased gonna have to throw them all away then slip into something more responsible and dance the night away
Eetswa I'm riding a pony,
I was 1 year old that year. I remember it like it was 39 years ago lol.
How the hell do you even remember?
That's rare, remembering a memory at 1 year of age...
Highly doubt it though
I don't remember it. I was 1 and now I'm 40. That's why I said I remember it like it was 39 years ago. If I remembered it, I would have said I remember it like it was yesterday.
Oh ok, sorry for the confusion
Lukeamania lol
My late uncle went to Mt. St. Helens to retrieve ash from the event after the area was re-opened, bringing back several baby-food jars of ash for family members. I still have that jar after all these years.
Many of the lives it claimed were of those who were nearby residents who had refused to evacuate when it was "suggested" to them; perhaps the most notable was an old codger named "Harry Truman" who lived on the mountain (yes, that was his name).
I heard about Harry as a kid and thought for years he was THAT Harry Truman.
My great grandparents were great friends with Harry Truman
I was pretty sure he lived by Spirit Lake at the base of the mountain. His lodge was completely buried by the landslide.
My youngest son was born the day before this happened.
Colleen Smith so was our oldest daughter
Colleen Smith The nurses suggested we name our daughter Helen, we had other plans 😉
I was born 20 days before it, St. Helens has always been part of my life.
It was that lil pricks fault
tell your son i said hi
seven year old me: Mom, look there's a white broccoli in the sky
Cauliflower*
@@Patty0188 he was 7, he probably did call it white broccoli
@@Patty0188 mashed potato’s
@@JCypher206 thanks for making that assumption for him
@@metallicarocker89 what about mashed potatoes
“Vancouver! Vancouver! This is it!”
RIP David Johnston
@@TheNightWatcher1385 sadly he was vaporized split seconds later. 🤷🏼♀️
I remember Mount St. Helens well. I lived about 400 miles away, in Montana, and within a few days we had about 4 inches of light gray volcanic ash covering everything. I wouldn't wash away with water, since it just floated on top and wouldn't mix in. The whole summer was cold that year because of all the ash in the air. It's the first time in my life that I had to wear a coat all summer long when the temperature was normally in the 90's during the summer.. I guess that's a taste of a nuclear winter.
So why are people complaining about people who call this video clickbait when i cant find anyone?
Would like the comment but it’s at 69 so nvm
Penis.
They prolly deleted the comments
Ummm they had clips of the volcano E.g. 1:43
We won so they ran away
Everything is worse on the 18th.
1. SF earthquake - April 18, 1906
2. St Helen Eruption - May 18, 1980
3. Granville Rail Disaster - January 18th, 1977
4. Japan 5.9 - 6.1 Earthquake - June 18, 2018
5. Mt. Everest Avalanche - April 18, 2014
6. Albert Einstein's Death - April 18, 1955
You forgot 9/11/2001
IBGCubing bruh
@@jiafeiqueen what?
IBGCubing 9/11 wasn’t on the 18th
@@jiafeiqueen That's the joke. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
r/whoooosh
This happened a couple years before I was even born, but my elem school teachers used to talk about it like we had any frame of reference other than some passing mention or footage on TV from time to time. Thank goodness for technological advances that all me to see this whenever I want finally.
I came home from church and watched it live on a local channel, and then I got ready for work. I worked the evening shift in the ER at Good Samaritan Hospital, in Puyallup, Washington. Late in the afternoon the first of many casualties started walking into the ER. They were all covered in ash and had respiratory problems, due to being inside the perimeter when she blew. Then we went outside and noticed a light pick up truck with the cargo bed full of ash. So we got stool specimen containers, filled them up with ash, then put the ash in better containers and mailed them to family and friends.
Me: *lives literally so close to Yellowstone National Park: “WERE GONNA DIE”*
Parents: cool
your parents were thinking " how to get the kids to move out?"
Loo
WhynottBelieve lool
"It's so beautiful I think I'm gonna stay.
Same
I was 40 miles west of this eruption on the day it happened and had a perfect view of it. It was surreal!!
danahan01 not enough proof for me to believe you
I remember that well also. I was living in Hockinson, WA when that erupted.
I remember when this happened. It effected weather patterns in the northern hemisphere for over a decade. Volcanic activity has more effect on climate than anything else on the planet.
@@XenonCitium Mt. Pinatubo in 1991 affected the worldwide climate for a couple of years
@Orange Crush Well they said it has more of an effect than anything else…they didn’t say it had a more negative effect.
Too bad volcanos can't be taxed
An eruption back in 1816 also significantly changed the climate.
Fun fact: the Eyjafjallajokull eruption back in 2010 actually _reduced_ pollution by grounding all air traffic in Europe for almost a week. Not sure if the knowledge that jets pollute more than volcanoes is impressive or disturbing.
My sister lived in Winatchee, Washington when that happened, she stepped out on her front porch and said she had 3 to 4 inch deep ash from from the eruption and it was pitch black outside.
nobody:
2020: "Wanna see me do it again?"
NO x'D
@@nuclearcockatiels3973 yup
@@saberiandream316 To add to this, a "Super Volcano" just means a regular volcano or patch of land was in a right place at a right time to form an off the scale eruption. It does not mean that the volcano will only form super eruptions.
@@saberiandream316 latest theories are yellowstone was just a thin patch of land, nothing more. But a very large pocket of pressurized magma was moving across land, trying to escape over thousands of years. Eventually when it slid under yellowstone the ground fell in and one of the world's greatest super volcanoes was unleashed. However it's over and done with, obviously there's a lot still active and going on but volcanologists say if it does errupt again it'll probably just destroy the park. Most of the pressure was gone a long time ago and the plates are still moving meaning in a few thousand years it won't even be under the park anymore.
Mt Hood is NOW stirring, shaking today, just like Mt St Helens did between March - May, 1980.
I lived through that. I was a child living in Yakima at the time. Getting ready to go to church and the skies got really dark. The next thing I knew everything was covered in at least a half of an inch of ash....everywhere! It was intense.
I lived in yakima a couple times over the years. Once in 1989 and again in 2012. Terrible place unless you have no life.
I thought Yakima got the most damage done
Events like this are the reason we have folktales and mythology.
I don’t get the reference
@@omegatone4557there is none
@@omegatone4557 They're right. Big events in history become legends in the end.
I was living in Seattle on Green Lake at the time. When the eruption occurred I was sleeping in on this Sunday and a loud slam on my bedroom window woke me up. At the time I thought a seagull had crashed into the window. Only later did I realize that this was the eruption shock wave.
This is NOT clickbait, you can see the thumbnail, there is footage from the eruption and you even get an explenation
Coco Palmtree explanation
- look at the comments
The Garchomp Tamer legit no-one said so
IGIgaming You must be trolling
Watching 40 years later during corona virus pandemic.
Same
I got this recommended by RUclips and I don't know how to feel about it.
Haha
Suzan Douglass some history huh
Signs you might be from Seattle:
if it's not covered in snow or has recently erupted...regardless of height, it's a hill, not a mountain.
We moved to Seattle from San Diego, a month after this. We still have the coffee can full of ash.
I live in Washington and remember it well. The mud flows down the Toutle river were especially memorable.
I was close to there, that fateful day,stationed aboard the U.S.S.Enterprise, in Bremerton, Wa., what a great spectacle! Would not have missed it for the world!
I was on the U.S.S. Camden AOE 2. I seen it too.
I definitely recommend visiting Mt St Helens, it was and is again breathtaking and a beautiful place to see. The PNW has countless beautiful sights to see.
When you eat chipotle and taco bell back-to-back
Lmao 😂
Why do most non-Mexicans believe those restaurants are Mexican. AUTHENTIC IS BETTER. Search Fung Bros:Tacos by the Border. That authentic food tastes better and won't make your bathroom Mt. St. Helens 2.0.
EJC Leopard kind of off topic since no one said anything about authenticity; just fiery hot magma butt.
@@Taijifufu had to say👍👍
There’s no need to follow Chipotle with ANYTHING...it is sufficient on its own to produce an eruption dwarfing this
I was 12,living in Vancouver. Me and my brother were playing at the school by are house.What a boom. Immediately we looked to the mountain.Vancouver is about 60 miles from it.The sky around the mountain was pitch black.We thought this is it.What a memory.
You never saw two boys run faster.
Darn RUclips Recommendation System, *you win again*
0:20
That’s a massive landslide!
Lol
hahah
It was. It was the largest landslides ever recorded by humans.
-_-
I was in Gresham, OR with friends playing a street-football game on the Football field at Gresham High School. The mountain was something less than 40 miles away as a crow flies and we had been watching it for months so no one was paying attention. We didn't hear or feel anything, likely because the Columbia River was between us but one of the guys looked over and his jaw was wide open, just staring. The wall of ash was blown East, we had an incredible view and then the sky appeared to be overcast in minutes but it was just ash covering the sun after the skies appeared to be totally clear. It was nothing short of surreal.
This eruption was the first thing I remember, from everyone watching on the news. A month later I turned three. So yes, this had a massive impact on everyone at the time.
My mom had told me stories about how there was a huge boom and so much ash suddenly on the bus and in the air when she was going to school, and traffic was in panic. Seems crazy.
1:06 They should have had their answer when the helicopter filmed the Mountain looking like a sadistic skull peeking its head out of the Earth surface.
Wow it really does!!😵 💀
Our weather in Nebraska was really strange for a couple weeks after the eruption. Everything was hazy, ash dust everywhere, the sun was orangish during the day and the moon deep red at night. Was an eerie feeling til things finally cleared up. Even tho I was 8 at the time, I thought it was pretty awesome to experience a volcano living that far away from it.
I experienced a beautiful reddish sky in Corpus Christi texas at that time and have yet not seen another sky like that since then. At the time I was 5 years old and now at 47 still can’t forget it especially that this occurred thousands of miles away.
I was in second grade in nearby Idaho when Mt. St. Helens blew. It was not only in the news, but we also got ash.
Only when I was older did I start to understand and appreciate what had happened.
Imagine being able to use all that energy
Eman ASMR you would be able to punch someone to mars
@@whitebeano6139 wrong this powerful energy might gave everyone free energy power for a week. Going to mars doesn't require that much energy.
You can use that energy, in geothermal plants. You just spread the usage of it out over many years to heat and light a city.
I can charge my phone for 2 days
You can send a perfect being who has nearly no weaknesses into space, which will freeze him and he will drift in space for eternity.
Absolutely astounding that in the grand scheme of volcanoes, this eruption was tiny.
Crazy to think that earth was once covered in constantly erupting volcanos and how violent it must've been
What's crazy is how many people live close to active ones today.
@@roserocks1979people always have. Volcanic soil is obscenely overpowered
I was 12 in 1980 and live in Tacoma. I remember watching the mushroom cloud growing and growing, and then for quite awhile for days later there was ash constantly falling everywhere, and little lava rocks. As kids, we collected them and glued little googly eys on them and tried to sell them. We all went up to the crater after a few weeks, I remember walking around an A frame house that was filled with mud and debris. Weird to come across this now, over 4 decades later.
I'm from Washington but I was born long after the eruption, and for years I didn't know much about it until the Pacific Science Center visited my elementary school, they showed the video of the eruption and I was so fascinated that I just watched it over and over, probably annoying all the other kids that wanted to see other cool stuff on the screen
Had a similar experience in my youth (born in '93). Whenever my classes took field trips to the Tacoma History Museum, there was always one machine in particular that had a "watch-and-answer"-type pop quiz about famous state events, with narrated video footage included. Thing about it was, you watched the original clip with narration, the question popped up, and you could either answer it or check back on the footage (with no audio) if you weren't sure--and you could play it forwards OR backwards! As you might imagine, I was fascinated by the footage of both Mt. St. Helens' eruption and the demolition of the Kingdome in 2000, and I may or may not have single-handedly worn that machine out with all the times I played the footage of those two events back and forth. XD I'm sure many a kid, parent, and/or museum worker were mildly annoyed by someone like me being glued to that thing for so long.
I didn’t even get to see them they just cancelled the field trip and made us walk to a different place
I was just a kid but the plume stretched across the whole sky. I lived near Seattle and you could see it all the way from there. My wife grew up on an island on the Colombia River not from Mt. St. Helen's. She had a front row seat and lived through ash clouds and lahares. Oddly, we both watched at the same time but from opposite sides of the eruption.
The good ole days- back then people didn't blame politicians for natural disasters.
indianapatsfan where was obama during this eruption!? He could have prevented this! (Sarcasm)
What? It's bush's fault.
Indo Science it’s george washington’s fault
It's caesars fault
Indo Science the mayans fault.
In (2007) while flying from Los Angeles to Seattle, I flew directly over the top of Mt. St. Helens. I can STILL SEE red flowing lava down in its base.
I lived in Portland at the time of the eruption, which occurred about 75 miles away from the city. The ash came down like a snow storm. We kids were upset because our mom wouldn't let us go out and play in it. She said she was worried that the ash might contain dangerous chemicals, but the real reason was that she didn't want her clean curtains and bed clothes dirtied 😁.
Hard to believe it’s been almost 40 years since this happened, I remember watching this...so sad and scary
It says “Footage” but what we got was 15 written paragraphs of what and how happened.
*Video Shows Footage of volcano erupting*
It's like I'm listening to a geography class
@@MandNsvideos665 ikr
@@MandNsvideos665 What did you expect when you clicked on a Smithsonian video about a volcano.
Clickbait doing clickbaitey things...
It's incredible to see the raw power of nature on display and humbling to remember the lives affected by this event.
It's incredible on how powerful volcano's/mother nature is when it takes its course, Mind-blowing!
I will never forget this. I was 11, and in Sunday school and a church in Yakima. There was so much ash, my dad couldn’t drive in it and it took us hours to get home
I was at Heisson Bridge outside of Yacolt, along the Lewis River. Freaking amazing. On my mother Helen's Birthday.
I'm not from anywhere near the US but I have a large collection of National Geographics. The May 1980 edition is one of the oldest I own, and it is a really good, if profound, portrait of the events of that day.
I lived in Yakima at the time. I remember the sky getting darker and darker, it was so eerie, we could see flashes of lightening and distant thunder. It was dark as midnight all day. I will never forget it.
Yakima was pretty close to that mountain. Could you hear the eruption from there? Also, how much ash fell there? I was just a baby when it erupted but my parents said that it that a dark cloud of ash took over a sunny May afternoon and made it as dark as night in Spokane. After it was all done, a couple inches of fine ash fell in the area. I remember as a kid you could see ash on the shoulder of I-90 for about 5-6 years later
I can imagine bill Wurtz playing jazz as the lava slowly destroys the city
Pompei all over again
I was living in Colorado when the eruption happened. My Dad was getting ready to go to work when he noticed dirt all over his car. He blamed my brother and I for it. Then he noticed all the cars in the neighborhood had a light film of dirt/ash on them. That's how far the soot from the eruption had spread.
It was pretty amazing to see...I’ll never forget feeling the ground shake and the cloud of smoke I saw. Crazy to not be to far from it still to this day.
I moved to Vancouver, Washington, in 1975, to start a business. Friends and I exported caves formed by lava tubes on the south side of the mountain. Another friend and I several times hiked the trails over rocky lopes above the tree line on the north side, overlooking the lake and Harry's lodge. When the mountain erupted, I remember driving north to the foothills, where we watch the eruption sitting on the hood of a 1978 Cadillac Fleetwood. Apart from the ash on my roof washing down into my underground gutter and clogging them. I had no real negative impact from the eruption, but it largely destroyed the rural communities 50 miles north of me, which were left with almost nothing to rebuild.
Yellowstone reading this: “hehe y’all want a bigger one I see”
“Our time has passed, John”
The sun: just wait many years and you’ll see me go **BOOM**
I will fall to make a huge pootis earthquake
Mother Nature: You can't fight gravity.
@@bosnar6457 rip Arthur 😞
My dad actually witnessed the explosion himself, we also visited a sight close to the mountain and they explained the effects.
Came here after watching the newest La Palma volcano update. So many where comparing it’s latest activity to Mt St Helens.
I had just turned 7 and my family lived in Washougal. I remember the hype on the news before it blew. Then I remember seeing the mountain and a column of smoke and ash as high as you could see trailing off to the NE. My father had been working in Centralia and a month or so after the eruption we went up there. The rivers were still gray and choked with debris. Just pictures in my mind at this point in my life, but I'll never forget it...
I wish people would have had iPhones then, think of all the badass videos we’d have.
The audio would be like
Yooo boi the mountain just *nut*
@@funibikeman6769 😐
One inch wide blurry videos!
Yeah and they would be dead way before they can even upload it 😂
@@firemangan2731 icloud baby
It was a strange sensation to go outside that morning and feel the ash 'raining' on you, like someone was sprinkling fine sand. Fortunately lived southwest of the eruption, and we only got a small amount, the main plume blew east.
I was 4 years old when it erupted. I'd absolutely love to have seen it with my adult eyes. For some reason I've been fascinated with Mount St. Helens my whole life.
My dad was 10 years old living in southeast Portland, OR when he got affected by the poundage of soot. According to his memory it's hard for him to remember because he had tendencies to dissociate whenever something traumatic happens. He's lived a rough life, but for some reason he can never leave Portland (we moved out of portland but stayed in the metro area).
I was nine, we lived in bellingham washington and I remember feeling the eruption if very slightly . I remember driving through the area a week later and seeing a layer of ash covering the land, my dad has a container of it still.
When someone drops their mixtape
no mention of Harry Randall Truman the man who lived at spirit lake and refused to leave his home even when they tried to get him to evacuate. mans a legend.
The eruption was so massive and violent that today Spirit Lake is in a completely different place, and at a completely different elevation, from where it was before. Ol Harry is buried so deep, getting to him would be less like digging for dinosaurs and more like digging for coal.
His middle name was not Randall. That has been a 40-year-old wive's tale. I've spoken with his granddaughter and she hates that.
@@srosenow98 the man is remembered for his brass that is what matters not for rumors.
@@JETZcorp He is not buried, but vaporized from the heat of the blast.
I was 30 and worked in downtown Portland. Some came in and said St Helens had erupted. I walked outside and looked north and the ash cloud was massive. After work I drove up to Mt Tabor park and there were hundreds of people watching the ongong eruption. No one said a word, we were all astonished. Only 90 miles north from Portland. Ash went west so little if any ash went south. We got about 1/2 inch of ash a couple weeks later. Have gone to the mountain a bunch of times since and its always amazing.
Yeah it was like a nuclear bomb 80k in the air from East County. Funny how now I realize how rare it was to be one of the few people on earth to have seen a giant eruption. Do you remember the eclipse at 8 am in those years? That was also pretty cool