Mount St. Helens

Mount St. Helens is an active volcano located in Skamania City, Washington in the United States. It was named Mount St. Helens from a British diplomat Lord St. Helens, a friend of an explorer who made a survey of the area in the late 18th century. It is 96 miles south of Seattle, Washington and 50 miles northeast of Portland, Oregon. The tectonic plates that make up Mount St. Helens are the Pacific Plate, North American Plate, and the tiny Juan de Fuca plate, an area known as a triple plate junction. As with most other volcanoes in the Cascade Range, Mount St. Helens is a large eruptive cone consisting of lava rock interlayered with ash and other deposits.

Mt. St. Helens had remained dormant for 123 years. In March of 1980 scientists recorded seismic tremors from the mountain and on

the 18 th of May 1980, Mount St. Helens erupted. The explosion blew off 1,300 feet of the mountain's top and sent ash and debris more than 12 miles into the sky covering three states - Washington, Oregon, and Idaho.

Sixty two people were dead, forests and lakes were destroyed resulting in $3 billion worth of damage. If the eruption occurred one day later, when loggers would have been at work, rather than on a Sunday, the death toll would almost certainly have been much higher. 83-year-old Harry R. Truman, who had lived near the mountain for 54 years, became famous when he decided not to evacuate before the impending eruption, despite repeated pleas by local authorities. His body was never found after the eruption.

It was a typical spring day; however this typical day did not last long. About 10:00 a.m. a black cloud covered the city in ash. The ash was so heavy it sank swimming pool covers and caved in old roofs. Businesses and schools were closed down as did all normal activity in daily life; Yakima was hit like a snowstorm and it looked like it from far away.

When the ash stopped falling down and the cloud clover lifted it remained gray and dreary for days.

Everywhere you looked people wore surgical masks (to stop from breathing the ash in) and swept ash off their rooftops. The city was a mess, but like any disaster life moves on and people cope. Yakima only had huge amounts of ash and clean up, while the people and the land near the mountain suffered death and destruction.

Between 1980 and 1986, activity continued at Mount St. Helens, with a new lava dome forming in the crater. Numerous small explosions and eruptions occurred. In 1982, President Ronald

Reagan and the U.S. Congress established the Mount St. Helens National Volcanic Monument, a 110,000 acres area around the mountain. The 1980 eruption, the area was left to gradually return to its natural state. In 1987, the U.S. Forest Service reopened the mountain to climbing. It remained open until 2004 when renewed activity caused the

closure of the area around the mountain.