Today we drove the 2 hour drive from Hoquiam, Washington to Castle Rock, Washington and spent the afternoon at Mt. St. Helens. For those of you who may have received a copy of my planned itinerary in May, this was a late change to the agenda. We decided to skip Mt. Rainer and went to Mt. St. Helens instead. I'm really glad we chose to visit Mt. St. Helens, it turned out to be an impressive site to see. Volcanic eruptions of the size of Mt. St. Helens don't come around very often, and this one happened in my lifetime (May 18, 1980). When you stand just a 1/2 a mile from the base of the mountain and witness the destruction of the landslide and blast zone, the event becomes very real. If you are ever driving up interstate 5, the site is only about one hour from the interstate and it is an impressive site to see. The mountain was decreased by 1,300 feet as a result of the eruption.
57 people died in the volcanic eruption, and it probably would have been fewer. Unfortunately, the predicted blast zone was much smaller than the actual blast zone. What was even more amazing is the ash cloud that spewed out. The town of Yakima was as dark as night during the day because the sun was completely blocked by the ash. In fact, Yakima had to divert all of their sewage to the river (without treatment) because the ash backed up the entire wastewater system.
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