2 hours, 28 minutes ago
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U.S. National - AP |
Posted on 10/02/2004 1:36:54 PM PDT by nwctwx
Edited on 10/02/2004 1:43:12 PM PDT by Admin Moderator. [history]
By PEGGY ANDERSEN, Associated Press Writer
SEATTLE - Government seismologists raised the alert level for Mount St. Helens on Saturday after its second steam eruption in two days, saying the next blast could threaten life and property in the remote area near the volcano.
The hundreds of visitors at the Johnston Ridge Observatory just five miles from Mount St. Helens were asked to leave. They went quickly to their cars and drove from the scene.
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2 hours, 28 minutes ago
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By NICHOLAS K. GERANIOS, Associated Press Writer
PULLMAN, Wash. - Glenn Johnson remembers running outside with canisters to catch some of the volcanic ash that began falling on Pullman after Mount St. Helens erupted in 1980. He wanted a souvenir. "Little did I know I would be shoveling ash for a week and a half," recalled Johnson, now mayor of this town near the Idaho state line.
Across the Northwest, veterans of the 1980 eruption were keeping a wary eye on the volcano as it ominously rocked with earthquakes, then belched a plume of steam and ash into the sky around noon on Friday. Experts said the small eruption may not be the last.
"The history of the volcano suggests it could be an opening salvo and we'll see more events like this," said Jeff Wynn, the chief scientist for volcano hazards at the federal Cascade Volcano Observatory. He called Friday's brief eruption a "throat-clearing."
The 1980 eruption killed 57 people, mostly clustered near the mountain, and volcanic activity continued until 1986.
Much of the cement-like ash fell on eastern Washington, northern Idaho and western Montana as thousands of travelers became stranded. Schools and businesses closed. Mountains of ash had to be moved and dumped.
In an effort to be better prepared this time, local governments across the region have been reviewing their disaster plans. The state Emergency Management Division, much maligned for poor performance in 1980, activated its Emergency Operations Center Wednesday and will keep it staffed round-the-clock, spokesman Rob Harper said.
Officials hope to avoid a repeat of the events that started at 8:32 a.m. on Sunday, May 18, 1980.
Shaken by an earthquake, the north face of the mountain collapsed in a massive rock debris avalanche. A mushroom-shaped column of ash rose thousands of feet skyward and drifted downwind, dumping more than 520 million tons of dark, gray ash from Yakima to Bozeman, Mont.
The eruption lasted 9 hours.
The ash turned day into night. Grocery stores ran out of food. Surgical masks to cover the nose and mouth were in short supply. There were 2,500 people stranded in the town of Ritzville by 5 to 7 inches of ash.
Ash weighed heavily on roofs, forcing residents to shovel it off. Communities struggled to find places to dump it all.
Patty Phillips was riding a motorcycle from Spokane west to Moses Lake, and was forced by the ash to hunker down for two days in the small town of Davenport.
Now she lives in Lind, a tiny town about 75 miles southwest of Spokane that has a wry highway sign proclaiming "Drop in, Mount St. Helens did."
Phillips is not too worried about the new rumblings from the volcano, but she isn't taking any chances.
"I asked my husband to stock up with milk," she said Thursday, remembering that commodity was in short supply in grocery stores after the last eruption.
Susan Cuff still has a small jar of ash she collected as a souvenir when she was a college student at the University of Montana in Missoula.
"I stayed home and watched it fall like snow," said Cuff, now the spokeswoman for the health department in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho. After the eruption, there were persistent rumors the ash might become acid when mixed with water. People worried about breathing it into their lungs. They weren't sure if they should use water to wash off the ash, or push it off roofs and vehicles with brooms. The fine ash was hard on motor vehicles, clogging air filters, scratching windshields, and mucking up bearings. Six Spokane city buses burned up their engines within two days. Cuff said officials are better prepared this time to warn people with respiratory problems to stay inside, and not to operate motor vehicles because the ash can damage the engine. State officials insist that modern communication systems and emergency plans will make them better prepared if Mount St. Helens erupts again. Still, Johnson's enduring memory of the 1980 eruption was that emergency management news was very slow coming out of the state capital, leaving communities to fend for themselves. "There's a lot of silent hope that it all blows on Olympia because we got no help from them last time," Johnson said. ___ On the Net: Pacific Northwest Seismograph Network: http://www.pnsn.org/HELENS/welcome.html
datura, where are you? Are you staying comprised of current developments? Were you the one that posted the graphs showing moment by moment activity? What is it looking like now?
Nice!! Get W on Air Force One and bring him out here right after the thing stops erupting, maybe it'll put Wash and Ore into play!! In all seriousness, I'm glad they are evacuating so no one gets hurt. But this thing will further put Kerry's big night into the backburner and seal in our lead...
This is where the media has been evacuated to.
Elk Rock Viewpoint (Castle Lake)
At Elk Rock, you enter the Mount St. Helens National Volcanic Monument where the ecosystem's process of rebuilding comes sharply into focus. At this viewpoint you can look down into the valley where the bones of the blown-down forest still exist, and view the "hummocks" on the debris avalanche. Ponder the colossal force that flattened 150 square miles of forest. For the first time on the byway, Mount Adams, itself a great volcano and the second tallest peak in the entire Cascade Range, appears like a silent witness on the eastern horizon.
yes.
they are being told now it is GOING to blow, very high probability of newly detected magma actively rocketing out to a perimeter of about five miles.
the earth quakes are ongoing, sustained, no longer tremors.
magma is coming on.
Yesteredays venting... was apparently the start of something bigger... and bigger is on the way.
ti's time to get the helloutta there.
and they are.
Sometimes I think Journalism ranks just above Basket Weaving and Remedial Phys Ed in the college curriculum.
I've driven through lava fields in other parts of Oregon that gave me the same impression. It's an amazing place.
thanks for the info granite, looks like they will still be in a good location to capture the possible eruption.
I know... I am watching it on Fox right now... You can see the fear in their eyes... They are really back-peddling on the size of the upcoming eruption...
What they are saying is, the gasses that they expected to see venting if NEW Magma was moving upwards from deep was infusing itself into the pure ground water which was absorbing most of it...
Now they say that there may be a TON of new magma coming up and there could be a BIG eruption any minute...
They have raised the ALERT LEVEL to 3, which means Volcano Erupting or Imminent Eruption and moved everybody back almost 10 miles as a new steam cloud begins to come out...
You can see a mixture of glee and fear in the eyes of the Geologists this afternoon...
great, just great... BLAMMO here it goes again...
I thought so, too. I was relieved when the evacuation order came down - judging from the speed with which the equipment was dismantled, the reporters were relieved, too. (of course, they were also racing each other to get to the next location, since they were told there wouldn't be room for all of them at the overlook)
It's so different than other places, such as Hawaii (Big Island).
Flash news: Former President Bill Clinton heading to area. Say's he must be on hand for "Big Blow".
Mount St. Helens Cam:
http://www.fs.fed.us/gpnf/volcanocams/msh/
Here we go again. Lots of folks said it was over... My back says otherwise-
I think God's trying to get our attention. Too many abnormal/unusual nature events going on....
So it is God's fault Florida was hit by all the hurricanes?
Interesting...
Some believe that. They neglect the book of Job, or the fact that the world has been this way forever.
They're both pretty scary IMO!
I guess when your neighbors house is hit by a tornado and destroyed then it is to reason that they didn' pray hard enough.
insert rolling eyes here please
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