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Speaker 1: Everyone. It's Josh.

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Speaker 2: For this week's s YSK Selects. I've chosen our January

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Speaker 2: twenty twenty three episode on the Mount Saint Helen's eruption.

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Speaker 2: It seems like just last year. It's a really good

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Speaker 2: episode that's packed with science, action, adventure, heroics, life and death, danger,

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Speaker 2: It's got it all. It's one of my favorite episodes,

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Speaker 2: so I hope you enjoy it as well.

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Speaker 3: Welcome to Stuff you should know, a production of iHeartRadio.

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Speaker 1: Hey, and welcome to the podcast.

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Speaker 2: I'm Josh, and there's Chuck and sitting in for Jerry

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Speaker 2: today is our great friend and co producer Dave Sea,

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Speaker 2: and the C stands for cool. Say hello Dave, Hi, everybody,

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Speaker 2: that's pretty. That's a really great Dave impression.

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Speaker 3: He's a troll.

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Speaker 2: Yes, I always hear him.

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Speaker 3: As Dave is great. I wish you all knew him,

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Speaker 3: but we do, and so he's ours. You're gonna have

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Speaker 3: to take our word for it. That's right.

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Speaker 2: Speaking of take our word for it, Chuck, I have

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Speaker 2: to say to all the people who don't know much

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Speaker 2: about Mount Saint Helen's, prepare to have your socks knocked.

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Speaker 3: Off, or your lid blown.

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Speaker 1: Or your skin seared off of your your muscle.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, this is a good one. This is I mean,

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Speaker 3: this is so bread and butter stuff. You should know

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Speaker 3: it is. I don't know why it took us almost

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Speaker 3: sixteen years to get to it.

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Speaker 2: And none of that margarine stuff are low fat. It's

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Speaker 2: like full milk fat butter. Man bread and butter stuff.

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Speaker 2: You should know salted butter even you like salted huh.

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Speaker 2: It depends what you're using it for. I like just

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Speaker 2: plain unsalted butter, even on a bread and butter piece

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Speaker 2: of like bread with butter.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, mainly with like baking and cooking. It's like that's

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Speaker 3: when it matters.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, I gotcha. What's your brand?

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Speaker 3: Oh?

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Speaker 1: Boy?

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Speaker 3: It depends. I mean I love to get the heat

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Speaker 3: to be that guy, but I do love to get

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Speaker 3: the local butter when we go to our farmer's market

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Speaker 3: and get it from our CSA.

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Speaker 1: What's wrong with that?

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Speaker 3: Well, I don't know. Can't you say, park Ca?

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Speaker 1: Can you right?

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Speaker 2: You must be a social justice warrior you buy local butter.

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Speaker 3: I do you like that? What's the stuff? The Irish

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Speaker 3: butter in the grocery store?

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Speaker 1: That's my brand? Carry Gold?

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Speaker 3: Carry Gold. That's good too, Like I've.

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Speaker 2: I've researched it, like I've literally researched the butter because

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Speaker 2: I want to get the most bang for my buck,

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Speaker 2: and it is at the top of basically every list.

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Speaker 2: It's good of like any butter of any kind, it's

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Speaker 2: really really good butter.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, I totally agree. I love carry gold. I take

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Speaker 3: that stuff camping.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, I carried it around in my pocket.

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Speaker 3: Well, I like it. You can get a tub. It's

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Speaker 3: a smaller tub, but I do like a spreadable tub

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Speaker 3: as opposed to a stick.

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Speaker 2: I haven't seen the tub. We have a stick because

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Speaker 2: we have a cute little butter dish that.

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Speaker 1: We use, so we use the sticks.

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Speaker 2: So anyway, back to Mount Saint Helens the episode today.

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Speaker 2: I was four years old when this happened, so I

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Speaker 2: mean I didn't know what was going on, but I imagine

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Speaker 2: you were like, holy cow, this is one of the

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Speaker 2: most amazing things I've ever seen on my TV.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, I was nine, and I remember it being a

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Speaker 3: big deal. But it's funny when I was researching this

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Speaker 3: and then watching there's a really really great thing on

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Speaker 3: YouTube that I recommend that A and E put out

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Speaker 3: years ago. It had to be it was called minute

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Speaker 3: by minute colon. The eruption of Mount Saint Helen's really

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Speaker 3: gripping stuff. As A and E used to do. You know,

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Speaker 3: they probably still do that kind of stuff. But I

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Speaker 3: don't know all of the media around it. I was thinking,

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Speaker 3: like man, and I don't know if it was more

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Speaker 3: regional or if it truly was nationwide. But I remember

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Speaker 3: the eruption, but I didn't remember like the six weeks

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Speaker 3: leading up to it, which was a very big deal.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, although I think it was more of like a yeah,

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Speaker 2: regional thing for this the lead up. And then also

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Speaker 2: if you were a geologist, a volcanologists, a seismologist, anything

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Speaker 2: that had to do with volcanoes erupting or mountains, then

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Speaker 2: it would have been a big deal to you too.

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Speaker 2: And it definitely attracted them from far and wide. And

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Speaker 2: because there was so much warning and it was able

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Speaker 2: to buy it, I mean, Mount Saint Helens was able

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Speaker 2: to kind of draw to it like a magnet. All

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Speaker 2: of these amazingly well trained researchers. They were there when

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Speaker 2: it went off, and it's probably the most best documented

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Speaker 2: volcano in history because of that.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, because like you said, the Mount Saint

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Speaker 3: Helens is basically saying it's coming everyone. Would you like

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Speaker 3: to document this? Yeah, I'm telling you again it's coming,

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Speaker 3: and I'll show you in lots of different scary ways

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Speaker 3: that it's coming. And people left, people stayed, people came there,

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Speaker 3: people like tourists came to see this thing. So for sure,

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Speaker 3: let's get into it.

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Speaker 2: Okay, So just a real quick refresher, we've done volcanoes,

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Speaker 2: and I think we've done super volcanoes too, because that

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Speaker 2: sounds like us.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, twenty ten was volcanoes, twenty seventeen with super volcanoes.

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Speaker 1: Okay.

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Speaker 2: So we talked a lot about how volcanoes work in

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Speaker 2: those episodes, So if you want to know a lot

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Speaker 2: more in depth, go check those out. But just as

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Speaker 2: a refresher for the specific kind of volcano that mount

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Speaker 2: Saint Helens is. It's a stratovolcano, and it's created when

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Speaker 2: one younger plate is subducted under an older plate, and

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Speaker 2: as the younger plate goes down into the bowels of

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Speaker 2: the Earth, all of the rocket carries with it gets

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Speaker 2: heated up. Same with water too, and that stuff travels

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Speaker 2: upward because it's less dense than the surrounding mantle down below.

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Speaker 2: And as it gets closer and closer to the crust,

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Speaker 2: it wants to pop out of there. Yeah, but it

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Speaker 2: can't necessarily, sometimes it can, and when it can, it

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Speaker 2: just spews out all sorts of molten lava and that

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Speaker 2: builds the volcano in it kind of a cone shape,

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Speaker 2: which is what Mount Saint Helens was up until May eighteenth,

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Speaker 2: nineteen eighty.

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Speaker 3: Yeah. It's a part of the cascade arc arranged there

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Speaker 3: in the Pacific Northwest. And all of this happened and

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Speaker 3: you know, geologically speaking, pretty quickly. Yeah, it happened over

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Speaker 3: the course of about forty thousand years in the case

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Speaker 3: of Mount Saint Helens, which is pretty speedy. And Ed

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Speaker 3: helped us out with this when did a great job

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Speaker 3: on this article, and Ed points out that you know,

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Speaker 3: in the Pacific Northwest, that's why you see so many

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Speaker 3: you know, sort of coney mountains like that is because

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Speaker 3: of this cascade arc and how these mountains were formed,

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Speaker 3: you know, not too long ago.

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Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, forty thousand years ago, maybe less.

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Speaker 3: Forty thousand for Saint Helens, and I think the whole

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Speaker 3: arc is less than one hundred.

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Speaker 2: Right, So the whole thing that's driving Mount Saint Helens

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Speaker 2: and apparently also there's some other I guess volcanic mountains

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Speaker 2: in the area, like Adams. I think Mount Adams is

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Speaker 2: one is well. Yeah, there's a there's a magma chamber

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Speaker 2: somewhere under there, I think possibly miles and miles below

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Speaker 2: the surface. But under normal circumstances, like I said, when

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Speaker 2: a straddo volcanoes formed, the lava just kind of is

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Speaker 2: able to find cracks in the crust and like it's

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Speaker 2: released through there and it builds the mountain up slowly

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Speaker 2: and slowly. But if there's not a crack in the crust,

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Speaker 2: as in the case where Mount Saint Helens is, that

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Speaker 2: magma starts to back up. It hits the crust and

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Speaker 2: it starts to back up below and all of a

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Speaker 2: sudden you have a lot of stuff going on that

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Speaker 2: makes things go kaboom when the right set of circumstances happen.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, this is this is pretty notable. This magma chamber

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Speaker 3: is well is and was quite large, and like you said,

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Speaker 3: it's it's looking for a place to go. But if

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Speaker 3: it doesn't have a place to go, what will happen?

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Speaker 3: And as you'll see, this is what happened in the

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Speaker 3: case of Mount Saint Helens is it starts bulging, and

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Speaker 3: like the mountain, if you're a geologist, it's super exciting

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Speaker 3: to see this happen, even though it's very scary and dangerous.

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Speaker 3: But when a geologist sees an actual mountain start to

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Speaker 3: bulge out in a direction and we're talking, you know,

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Speaker 3: hundreds of feet of bulge over the course of a

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Speaker 3: pretty short period of time, then it's pretty like it's

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Speaker 3: a pretty notable thing. And that's exactly what was happening

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Speaker 3: in the case of the magma chamber there in Washington.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, like this pressure is building up so much it's

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Speaker 2: causing a boil on the mountain. The mountain grows a

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Speaker 2: goiter basically, and that's just full of pressure and magma

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Speaker 2: just waiting to go off. It doesn't always go off,

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Speaker 2: And in fact, Mount Saint Helen's had two bulges also

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Speaker 2: called cryptodomes, which is pretty awesome from previous volcanic eruptions.

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Speaker 2: One was called Goat Rocks bulge and then the other

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Speaker 2: one was called the Sugar Bowl bulge, and they just

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Speaker 2: never like the magma found its way out other ways,

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Speaker 2: but the bulge was left. This is a new bulge,

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Speaker 2: and like you said, it was growing I think about

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Speaker 2: six feet a day. Every day it kept growing another

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Speaker 2: six feet, which is really fast for a mountain to grow.

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Speaker 2: And that was one of the big signs initially that

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Speaker 2: something was going on. And one more thing before we

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Speaker 2: started to get into Mount Saint Helens itself, Chuck, I

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Speaker 2: think we need to say, like Mount Saint Helens was big.

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Speaker 2: It was a big eruption, but it was not the

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Speaker 2: biggest eruption Saint Helens has ever had, And apparently the

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Speaker 2: biggest eruption it's ever had came just about four thousand

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Speaker 2: years ago, which is within traditional like folk tale memory.

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Speaker 3: Yeah. I mean it had been an active volcano for

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Speaker 3: forty thousand years, but the big one before nineteen eighty was. Yeah,

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Speaker 3: like you said, for I was trying to look at

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Speaker 3: a specific year, but let's just say four thousand years ago. Yeah,

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Speaker 3: because once you get back that far, you know who cares?

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Speaker 3: Who cares? But it became, like you said, part of folklore.

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Speaker 3: The indigenous people there, especially the puyall Up people, called

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Speaker 3: the mountain Lewittowit, and there was a LeWitt Brewing company,

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Speaker 3: so I wanted to shout them out. This is one

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Speaker 3: of those things where I thought, I wonder why, because

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Speaker 3: there's been such a push to change names of things

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Speaker 3: over the past like decade or so, this is one

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Speaker 3: that was. It seems so like sort of egregious that

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Speaker 3: we should call it LeWitt and not Mount Saint Helen's.

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Speaker 3: That I'm pretty curious. I'm sure there's been pushes over

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Speaker 3: the years to get it changed. But the Europeans, of

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Speaker 3: course named it Mount Saint Helens in seventeen ninety two

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Speaker 3: after Captain George Vancouver. If that name rings a bell,

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Speaker 3: it should gave the name of it because of a

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Speaker 3: diplomat name. Allan fitz Herbert didn't call it fitz Herbert

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Speaker 3: Peak or anything like that because his noble title was

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Speaker 3: Baron Saint Helen's, thank god. But here's the rub is

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Speaker 3: that Allan fitz Herbert never even saw Mount Saint Helens,

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Speaker 3: the mountain named after him. So like, I don't know,

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Speaker 3: maybe maybe let's call this one LEWITTT Yeah, I think

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Speaker 3: that's a great idea actually, And the reason they call

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Speaker 3: it LeWitt that was she was named after a like

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Speaker 3: a famous volcanic fire tender woman and Lewett and a

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Speaker 3: couple of other men who fell in love with her

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Speaker 3: and fought for her became LeWitt, became Mount Saint Helens

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Speaker 3: or Lewett, if you want to call it that.

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Speaker 2: And then the other the other men who were fighting

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Speaker 2: for became Mount Hood and Mount Adams. They were smited

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Speaker 2: by the Creator God and turned into mountains for fighting.

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Speaker 2: And there's legends not just from the puyol Up but

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Speaker 2: other indigenous tribes around the area that something really big happened.

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Speaker 2: And it looks like what it is is a geo myth,

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Speaker 2: which we've talked about before. And I think the Great

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Speaker 2: Floods episode that has been handed down generation after generation

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Speaker 2: that describes this enormous eruption four thousand years ago pretty

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Speaker 2: good stuff, Yeah, for sure. And it was a big

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Speaker 2: eruption too. There's just one other thing. There is a

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Speaker 2: layer of tephra of basically volcanic ash and debris and

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Speaker 2: stuff that is so thick and so wide it goes

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Speaker 2: up into British Columbia and sixty two miles away from

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Speaker 2: Mount Saint Helen it's still twenty inches thick, almost two

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Speaker 2: feet thick of ash sixty two miles away. That's how

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Speaker 2: big that four thousand year ago eruption was that's huge.

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Speaker 3: And all this to say that Mount Saint Helen's, which

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Speaker 3: has an s by the way, did you know that?

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Speaker 1: Yeah? I did.

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Speaker 3: You keep saying, Helen. I just wondered.

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Speaker 2: I'm being short. I don't want to take up too

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Speaker 2: much time talking about certainly.

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Speaker 1: That's good.

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Speaker 3: That reminds me of the guy in college who fell

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Speaker 3: on the sidewalk and his books splayed out and then

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Speaker 3: he acted like he was reading.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, I love that story. I forgot about him.

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Speaker 3: All this to say is that Mount Saint Helen's had been,

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Speaker 3: you know, active, had a long history of activity. So

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Speaker 3: it's not like anyone ever thought, well, that thing is

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Speaker 3: done and it's never going to happen again.

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Speaker 1: No, definitely not.

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Speaker 2: Because also in the nineteenth century there was a lot

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Speaker 2: of eruptions too. There's a painting by a Canadian artist

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Speaker 2: named Paul Caine who painted an eighteen forty seven eruption. So,

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Speaker 2: I mean, starting in the nineteenth century, Mount Saint Helen's

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Speaker 2: was documented pretty clearly scientifically too, as being an eruptive volcano,

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Speaker 2: a disruptive volcano.

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Speaker 1: You can almost say.

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Speaker 3: All right, shall we take a break. Yeah, it's a

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Speaker 3: nice prelude, I think so too. All right, we'll be

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Speaker 3: back right after this, softy.

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Speaker 1: Josh so.

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Speaker 3: Okay. So we got a nice background on Mount Saint Helens.

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Speaker 3: It had been very active for about or on and

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Speaker 3: off active for forty thousand years, including I believe the

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Speaker 3: last sort of big one was in eighteen fifty seven.

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Speaker 3: Not too long after that, in nineteen oh eight, about

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Speaker 3: a million acres of land became part of Columbia National Forest,

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Speaker 3: which was hence renamed Gifford Pinchhot or Pinchot. I never

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Speaker 3: know how to say that the Bronson Pinchot National Forest

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Speaker 3: National Forest, and that was in nineteen forty nine, and

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Speaker 3: Mount Saint Helens is inside that National Forest. All this

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Speaker 3: is sort of a long way of saying it wasn't

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Speaker 3: like super populated. It didn't have wasn't surrounded by neighborhoods

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Speaker 3: and suburbs and stuff like that. But there was something

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Speaker 3: or is still something called Spirit Lake there near the

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Speaker 3: base of the mountain, which is they have like youth

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Speaker 3: camps there, People had cabins here and there. There were

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Speaker 3: recreational activities that all over the place. So it's not

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Speaker 3: like no one was there, but it wasn't heavily populated.

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Speaker 2: Right well put, so the whole thing starts. Actually even

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Speaker 2: before the whole thing started, and I saw in nineteen

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Speaker 2: seventy five the two volcanologists published a paper saying that

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Speaker 2: it was very likely Mount Saint Helens was going to

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Speaker 2: erupt in the twentieth century at some point, like a

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Speaker 2: big one.

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Speaker 3: Yeah.

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Speaker 2: And five years later, on March twentieth, nineteen eighty, the

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Speaker 2: whole thing was kicked off by a four point zero earthquake,

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Speaker 2: which is nothing to sneeze at, and it was at

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Speaker 2: the mountain, Like this earthquake took place at the mountain,

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Speaker 2: and all of a sudden, within five days there were

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Speaker 2: quake storms. There was twenty four quakes of four point

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Speaker 2: zero or greater within eight hours. Oh man, when a

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Speaker 2: volcano starts doing that and you're detecting it, that's when

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Speaker 2: the geologists come running from far and wide.

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Speaker 3: Yeah. So they you know, the word gets out, and

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Speaker 3: they did cone running from far and wide, and they

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Speaker 3: you know, set up camp there at various places. Other

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Speaker 3: just sort of as I learned from watching this an

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Speaker 3: e special, that there are like volcano chasers even that

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Speaker 3: they hear about this stuff. They're fascinated by it. I

303
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Speaker 3: guess it's just sort of amateur geo enthusiasts. And people

304
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Speaker 3: started kind of coming in there because they got wind

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Speaker 3: that something may be brewing at Mount Saint Helen's including

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Speaker 3: and this is you know, there are all kinds of

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Speaker 3: people we could feature story wise, but one gentleman we

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Speaker 3: are going to feature. His name was David Johnston, and

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Speaker 3: he was a volcanologist at the USGS, the United States

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Speaker 3: Geographical Survey, and he was one of the There were

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Speaker 3: some great interviews with him in this A and E special.

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Speaker 3: He was very young guy, super excited to be there,

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Speaker 3: and he was one of the ones kind of sounding

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Speaker 3: the alarm along with his partner and this guy named

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Speaker 3: Don Swanson about hey, like you know, the s is

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Speaker 3: getting real here everybody, and it looks like thing like

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Speaker 3: people need to start leaving.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, Like the thing is is there were the people

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Speaker 2: who did live on the mountain were not the kind

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Speaker 2: of folk who listened to like you know, the governmental

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Speaker 2: net and college boys or the government to be told

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Speaker 2: like leave your home. And then also there was those

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Speaker 2: youth groups that were like you're going to ruin our week.

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Speaker 2: At Spirit Lake, there was also Weyerhaeuser exactly, it's like

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Speaker 2: a roller rink over there. And then there was Weyerhauser

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Speaker 2: who had a contract to be able to log on

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Speaker 2: the on the mountain. They definitely didn't want to have

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Speaker 2: to shut down operations. So there's a lot of pressure,

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Speaker 2: a surprising amount of pressure, you know, more than you

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Speaker 2: would think, to keep the mountain open. And David Johnston

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Speaker 2: and Don Swanson and some of the other colleagues were like,

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Speaker 2: you really can't do this, and they managed to convince

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Speaker 2: the governor of Washington that it was the right move.

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Speaker 2: And then later on, as we'll see, there was even

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Speaker 2: more pressure to reopen because things didn't go as fast

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Speaker 2: as everyone thought, and they managed to push that back

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Speaker 2: as well, and as a result, David Johnston is frequently

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Speaker 2: credited for saving thousands of lives. Yeah, potentially, which is

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Speaker 2: pretty cool. I mean, and everything I've seen about him,

340
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Speaker 2: he was a genuinely great person and also like a

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Speaker 2: really great pioneer in volcanology too.

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Speaker 3: Yeah. Absolutely, Yeah. They did eventually set up what they

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Speaker 3: called a red zone, and a lot of people did evacuate.

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Speaker 3: There were some notable people who didn't. Certainly, we need

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Speaker 3: to mention Harry Truman obviously not the president, but he

346
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Speaker 3: was this old codger who ran the lodge there, and

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Speaker 3: he became a folk hero because he famously thumbed his

348
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Speaker 3: nose and stayed and said, you know, I'm a part

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Speaker 3: of this place. It's a part of me. If the

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Speaker 3: mountain goes, I'm going to go with it. Art Carney

351
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Speaker 3: played him in the movie version. He got a lot

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Speaker 3: of media attention along with his sixteen cats, which is

353
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Speaker 3: the only part of the story. Like, hey, man, I'm

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Speaker 3: all for people evacuating and keep people safe, but I'm

355
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Speaker 3: also like some old old mountain man wants to stay

356
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Speaker 3: up there and go go down with a volcano. Like, yeah,

357
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Speaker 3: that's his right, but send the cats away. Don't say

358
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Speaker 3: like I'm gonna go down and kill these sixteen cats

359
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Speaker 3: at the same time.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, it's kind of like being buried in like you know,

361
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Speaker 2: medieval times and having your live horse buried with you.

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Speaker 3: Yeah. I just I don't know. Man. Once I heard

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Speaker 3: about the cats, because I was all into this guy, right,

364
00:19:29,720 --> 00:19:31,840
Speaker 3: and then I heard about the cats, I was like, oh, dude,

365
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Speaker 3: you should have at least sent the cats away.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, no way, not a lodge codure. So Harry Truman

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Speaker 2: will come back in. This is Harry ar Truman, by

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Speaker 2: the way, everybody said his middle initial to differentiate him.

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Speaker 1: He'll come back in later.

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Speaker 2: But so the last thing that we happened on the

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Speaker 2: mountain March twenty fifth, in eight hours, there's twenty four

372
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Speaker 2: four point zero or greater magnitude earthquakes, and that brought

373
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Speaker 2: everybody running. This whole thing was so perfectly planned that

374
00:20:06,119 --> 00:20:10,120
Speaker 2: on the day of the eruption there was the mineral

375
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Speaker 2: and gem show in Yakima, like I think, less than

376
00:20:13,640 --> 00:20:16,560
Speaker 2: one hundred miles away from Mount Saint Helens. So anybody

377
00:20:16,600 --> 00:20:20,399
Speaker 2: who had anything to do with geology just happened to

378
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Speaker 2: be in the area or was purposefully in the area.

379
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Speaker 2: And then on March twenty seventh, it's just getting more

380
00:20:26,840 --> 00:20:30,200
Speaker 2: and more and more. There was an actual eruption, right.

381
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Speaker 3: Yeah, So this was I mean, compared to what eventually

382
00:20:33,600 --> 00:20:36,400
Speaker 3: ended up happening, you could call this sort of mini eruption.

383
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Speaker 3: Even though it sent it made a big boom. Apparently

384
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Speaker 3: it was a pretty cloudy day so it wasn't super visible,

385
00:20:43,800 --> 00:20:47,480
Speaker 3: but the ashcolumn went up sixty five hundred feet into

386
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Speaker 3: the air.

387
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Speaker 1: It's nothing to sneeze it.

388
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Speaker 3: And a new crater formed at the summit, which grew

389
00:20:52,680 --> 00:20:56,919
Speaker 3: to about sixteen hundred feet wide, so it was a

390
00:20:56,920 --> 00:20:58,920
Speaker 3: major thing. There was another one on the twenty eighth,

391
00:20:59,280 --> 00:21:02,919
Speaker 3: again throwing ash into the air. And this is like

392
00:21:03,160 --> 00:21:07,359
Speaker 3: basically from that point through the big one in mid May,

393
00:21:08,040 --> 00:21:14,879
Speaker 3: it was just constant warning, constant upheople, mud slides, avalanches,

394
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Speaker 3: craters growing, and like the mountain is saying, like it's

395
00:21:19,200 --> 00:21:21,320
Speaker 3: going to happen people, This is not a false alarm

396
00:21:22,480 --> 00:21:25,640
Speaker 3: until things calm down. And that's what you were talking

397
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Speaker 3: about earlier, Like things kind of settled down.

398
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Speaker 1: On what was that like May around the fifteenth.

399
00:21:32,040 --> 00:21:34,479
Speaker 3: Yeah, around the fifteenth of May to where the people

400
00:21:35,320 --> 00:21:37,760
Speaker 3: got antsy that were evacuated and said, hey, listen, we

401
00:21:37,800 --> 00:21:40,239
Speaker 3: want to go back and check on our stuff. And

402
00:21:40,280 --> 00:21:42,440
Speaker 3: the governor eventually was like all right, I think it,

403
00:21:42,640 --> 00:21:44,400
Speaker 3: you know at the time, and I think Washington still

404
00:21:44,440 --> 00:21:47,399
Speaker 3: is a little bit of one of those like not

405
00:21:47,480 --> 00:21:50,520
Speaker 3: quite live free or die, but you know, like all right, listen,

406
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Speaker 3: these people pay taxes, they want to go back to

407
00:21:52,240 --> 00:21:55,240
Speaker 3: their homes, sign a waiver that you're not going to

408
00:21:55,320 --> 00:21:57,920
Speaker 3: sue us, and let them go back there. And that's

409
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Speaker 3: what they did.

410
00:21:59,000 --> 00:21:59,440
Speaker 1: They did.

411
00:21:59,600 --> 00:22:03,159
Speaker 2: There's footage of them signing waivers on the hood of

412
00:22:03,200 --> 00:22:05,880
Speaker 2: a car with some obvious state lawyer in a three

413
00:22:05,920 --> 00:22:09,600
Speaker 2: piece suit of canning people a pen being like signed here.

414
00:22:09,720 --> 00:22:12,920
Speaker 2: It's really hilarious, but they did. They started some people

415
00:22:12,960 --> 00:22:17,120
Speaker 2: started to trickle in, and that's actually why there were

416
00:22:18,119 --> 00:22:20,040
Speaker 2: you know, I think, And we ended up with fifty

417
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Speaker 2: seven casualties. Fifty seven people died and that was one

418
00:22:24,960 --> 00:22:27,720
Speaker 2: reason why it was actually that high. Could have could

419
00:22:27,720 --> 00:22:30,159
Speaker 2: have been less, but people were allowed to trickle back in.

420
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Speaker 2: They still kept like a perimeter, but I think it

421
00:22:33,480 --> 00:22:37,000
Speaker 2: was kind of porous. If you wanted to get through,

422
00:22:37,080 --> 00:22:39,520
Speaker 2: you could get through. And there are stories in that

423
00:22:39,640 --> 00:22:43,280
Speaker 2: minute by minute episode of People. There's this one backpacker

424
00:22:43,280 --> 00:22:46,720
Speaker 2: who is probably hilarious at parties because he makes like

425
00:22:46,760 --> 00:22:49,320
Speaker 2: a funny a funny voice for the police when the

426
00:22:49,320 --> 00:22:52,080
Speaker 2: police is talking, when he's recreating a conversation he had

427
00:22:53,200 --> 00:22:55,240
Speaker 2: he's stuck through with friends. There are a lot of

428
00:22:55,240 --> 00:22:57,360
Speaker 2: people on the mountain that otherwise might not have been

429
00:22:57,600 --> 00:22:59,840
Speaker 2: had they kept it closed. But they did open it

430
00:22:59,920 --> 00:23:02,320
Speaker 2: up a little bit, and it was because nothing had

431
00:23:02,359 --> 00:23:05,040
Speaker 2: happened for a little while and then about three days

432
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Speaker 2: later everything happened. You said, you said S was getting real.

433
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Speaker 2: This is when the s hit the fan.

434
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Speaker 3: Yeah, well, I mean just prior to this, I guess.

435
00:23:15,600 --> 00:23:17,679
Speaker 3: Let's back up one half second and let you know about, OK,

436
00:23:18,200 --> 00:23:20,760
Speaker 3: what happened when David Johnson and Don Swanson, they had

437
00:23:20,800 --> 00:23:24,720
Speaker 3: moved from their initial base at Coldwater one, which was

438
00:23:24,760 --> 00:23:30,160
Speaker 3: about I think eight or nine miles away, took their

439
00:23:30,280 --> 00:23:33,280
Speaker 3: second station, which was called cold Water two, which is

440
00:23:33,320 --> 00:23:36,800
Speaker 3: about five to six miles from the mountain, And notably

441
00:23:36,840 --> 00:23:38,600
Speaker 3: it was on the northeast side of the mountain, which

442
00:23:39,280 --> 00:23:42,199
Speaker 3: turned out to be the wrong spot to be. But

443
00:23:42,320 --> 00:23:45,120
Speaker 3: you know, these guys knew what was going on. They

444
00:23:45,440 --> 00:23:48,760
Speaker 3: know it's a dangerous job. And apparently they were swapping

445
00:23:49,560 --> 00:23:53,120
Speaker 3: taking shifts, and Don Swanson got the call from Johnston

446
00:23:53,200 --> 00:23:55,440
Speaker 3: and he said, hey, listen, I've got tonight and tomorrow

447
00:23:55,600 --> 00:23:58,000
Speaker 3: if you come and relieve me the next day. And

448
00:23:58,040 --> 00:24:01,879
Speaker 3: then on May eighteenth, nineteen eighty is when Johnston was

449
00:24:01,880 --> 00:24:03,879
Speaker 3: there when everything went boom.

450
00:24:04,119 --> 00:24:06,679
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I think there have been other colleagues and

451
00:24:06,800 --> 00:24:09,640
Speaker 2: grad students and everything around cold Water too, and Johnston

452
00:24:09,680 --> 00:24:11,959
Speaker 2: sent them away. He's like, this is outside the red zone.

453
00:24:12,080 --> 00:24:15,240
Speaker 2: It's still potentially dangerous. There's no reason for more than

454
00:24:15,320 --> 00:24:16,680
Speaker 2: just one of us to be here at a time.

455
00:24:16,720 --> 00:24:20,119
Speaker 2: So you guys go So at eight thirty two am

456
00:24:20,200 --> 00:24:24,960
Speaker 2: on May eighteenth, nineteen eighty, Mount Saint Helens like blew up.

457
00:24:25,480 --> 00:24:29,239
Speaker 2: And there's like a typical idea that people have of

458
00:24:29,480 --> 00:24:32,640
Speaker 2: a volcano going off, and most of the time it's

459
00:24:32,920 --> 00:24:35,919
Speaker 2: shooting like a huge thing of ash and magma straight

460
00:24:35,960 --> 00:24:38,959
Speaker 2: into the air from its top. Yeah, but that is

461
00:24:39,000 --> 00:24:41,760
Speaker 2: not what happened with Mount Saint Helens. Mount Saint Helens

462
00:24:41,800 --> 00:24:45,920
Speaker 2: was a very specific and unusual type of eruption because

463
00:24:45,960 --> 00:24:48,080
Speaker 2: it didn't go out of the top. It came out

464
00:24:48,160 --> 00:24:51,199
Speaker 2: of the side, and it came out in what was

465
00:24:51,720 --> 00:24:54,800
Speaker 2: known as a lateral blast eruption. Yeah.

466
00:24:54,920 --> 00:24:57,560
Speaker 3: So you know, like we said earlier, that pressure is

467
00:24:57,600 --> 00:25:01,479
Speaker 3: building up a lot under the surface. There's a lot

468
00:25:01,520 --> 00:25:04,679
Speaker 3: of moisture down there. Some of it was, like you mentioned,

469
00:25:04,680 --> 00:25:09,600
Speaker 3: from that initial plate subduction, that's called magmatic water. Some

470
00:25:09,640 --> 00:25:12,040
Speaker 3: of it is just regular old groundwater from rain and

471
00:25:12,080 --> 00:25:14,520
Speaker 3: snow and everything. Because it is the mountains, that's called

472
00:25:14,560 --> 00:25:18,040
Speaker 3: meteoric water, and all of that stuff is just heating up.

473
00:25:18,080 --> 00:25:21,199
Speaker 3: It's got pressure from below because it's heating, it's got

474
00:25:21,240 --> 00:25:23,680
Speaker 3: pressure from above because all of that weight of the

475
00:25:23,760 --> 00:25:26,600
Speaker 3: rock is just pushing it down, and all of this

476
00:25:26,760 --> 00:25:30,879
Speaker 3: magma is just like boiling under there. But I know

477
00:25:30,880 --> 00:25:32,879
Speaker 3: we talked about this before. I guess it was in

478
00:25:32,920 --> 00:25:36,159
Speaker 3: one of the volcano episodes. But it's not allowed to

479
00:25:36,160 --> 00:25:38,520
Speaker 3: turn to steam because there's no room for it. Like

480
00:25:38,840 --> 00:25:42,560
Speaker 3: steam is expansive and it can't expand So it's just

481
00:25:43,000 --> 00:25:48,840
Speaker 3: this superheated, beyond the boiling point level of liquid that's

482
00:25:48,920 --> 00:25:53,160
Speaker 3: just distributed all throughout the upper half and notably sort

483
00:25:53,160 --> 00:25:54,479
Speaker 3: of the north side of this mountain.

484
00:25:55,080 --> 00:25:58,120
Speaker 2: Yeah, and that created that bulge that kept growing by

485
00:25:58,119 --> 00:26:02,600
Speaker 2: about six feet a day. That was what the it

486
00:26:02,640 --> 00:26:05,800
Speaker 2: is because like it's as violent as as you can

487
00:26:05,840 --> 00:26:08,560
Speaker 2: imagine that a bulge, and something that could make a

488
00:26:08,560 --> 00:26:11,200
Speaker 2: bulge on the side of the mountain would be and

489
00:26:11,280 --> 00:26:17,080
Speaker 2: sound under other circumstances, a pliny an eruption where volcano

490
00:26:17,160 --> 00:26:19,479
Speaker 2: explodes out at the top, like you typically think of

491
00:26:20,200 --> 00:26:23,560
Speaker 2: that pressure that magma's going to basically force the top

492
00:26:23,600 --> 00:26:27,399
Speaker 2: of the mountain open and that's how it's going to explode.

493
00:26:27,840 --> 00:26:30,400
Speaker 2: This is not what happened with Mount Saint Helens that

494
00:26:30,880 --> 00:26:33,920
Speaker 2: kind of I guess the hump was on one side.

495
00:26:33,920 --> 00:26:36,399
Speaker 2: It was on the north flank, wasn't it. Yeah, so

496
00:26:36,440 --> 00:26:38,600
Speaker 2: it was on the north flank. And the thing that

497
00:26:38,680 --> 00:26:42,159
Speaker 2: kicked off Mount Saint Helens eruption wasn't the volcano. It

498
00:26:42,200 --> 00:26:47,240
Speaker 2: was actually an earthquake in the volcano, and that earthquake

499
00:26:47,359 --> 00:26:52,560
Speaker 2: caused the largest landslide and recorded history on Earth. More

500
00:26:52,600 --> 00:26:56,120
Speaker 2: than half of a square mile of Mount Saint Helen's

501
00:26:56,440 --> 00:27:00,880
Speaker 2: suddenly vanished away. It just suddenly dropped off the side

502
00:27:00,880 --> 00:27:02,159
Speaker 2: of the north side of the mountain.

503
00:27:02,560 --> 00:27:05,359
Speaker 3: Yeah. And it's like, you should really go check out

504
00:27:05,400 --> 00:27:08,480
Speaker 3: the footage of this stuff. It's some of the most amazing,

505
00:27:08,600 --> 00:27:13,320
Speaker 3: like natural geologic disaster footage I've ever seen, just to

506
00:27:13,359 --> 00:27:15,399
Speaker 3: see this mountain and then that you know, especially in

507
00:27:15,400 --> 00:27:19,639
Speaker 3: the ane thing, to see people interviewed describing like seeing

508
00:27:19,640 --> 00:27:22,800
Speaker 3: this with their eyeballs. It was just like it was

509
00:27:22,840 --> 00:27:26,280
Speaker 3: incomprehensible what they were witnessing, like a mountain that large

510
00:27:26,800 --> 00:27:29,959
Speaker 3: and part of it just going away immediately.

511
00:27:30,720 --> 00:27:30,880
Speaker 1: Yeah.

512
00:27:30,920 --> 00:27:33,040
Speaker 2: And one of the reasons they were able to witness it,

513
00:27:33,080 --> 00:27:35,800
Speaker 2: and we have such great documentations because at eight thirty

514
00:27:35,800 --> 00:27:39,600
Speaker 2: two am, a pair of geologists husband and wife geologists,

515
00:27:39,760 --> 00:27:42,520
Speaker 2: happened to be flying in a plane. Yeah, because they'd

516
00:27:42,600 --> 00:27:44,760
Speaker 2: hired a plane to go look at Mount Saint Helens

517
00:27:44,760 --> 00:27:47,399
Speaker 2: because they'd heard that, you know, it was there's some

518
00:27:47,440 --> 00:27:50,000
Speaker 2: stuff going on, and they happened to make one more

519
00:27:50,080 --> 00:27:53,600
Speaker 2: pass right as the mountain that earthquake dropped the side

520
00:27:53,600 --> 00:27:56,000
Speaker 2: of the mountain. They were like right above it in

521
00:27:56,040 --> 00:27:56,440
Speaker 2: a plane.

522
00:27:56,480 --> 00:27:57,119
Speaker 1: As a matter of.

523
00:27:57,119 --> 00:27:59,159
Speaker 3: Fact, Yeah, what's where's your quote? Should we read that?

524
00:27:59,680 --> 00:28:00,320
Speaker 1: Yeah?

525
00:28:00,359 --> 00:28:04,520
Speaker 3: This is Dorothy Dorothy Stoffel in twenty nineteen. She said,

526
00:28:04,560 --> 00:28:06,719
Speaker 3: the whole north half of the mountain that we were

527
00:28:06,720 --> 00:28:09,719
Speaker 3: flying just five hundred feet above, began churning, and a

528
00:28:09,760 --> 00:28:13,959
Speaker 3: mile long fracture shot across the mountain faster than our

529
00:28:14,000 --> 00:28:16,480
Speaker 3: minds could absorb. The north half of the mountain just

530
00:28:16,520 --> 00:28:19,000
Speaker 3: became like fluid and slid away.

531
00:28:19,960 --> 00:28:20,440
Speaker 1: Amazing.

532
00:28:20,480 --> 00:28:22,520
Speaker 2: I saw somebody else describe it as like a zipper

533
00:28:22,600 --> 00:28:23,840
Speaker 2: opening along the mountain.

534
00:28:24,960 --> 00:28:28,399
Speaker 3: Yeah. And you know, there were amateur photographers around for

535
00:28:28,440 --> 00:28:30,720
Speaker 3: some of this stuff. Some of these hikers like that

536
00:28:30,760 --> 00:28:34,240
Speaker 3: guy you mentioned that was telling the story and funny voices,

537
00:28:36,359 --> 00:28:40,120
Speaker 3: and volcano chasers like they got some like some one

538
00:28:40,120 --> 00:28:41,840
Speaker 3: guy got like twenty two pictures in a row, and

539
00:28:41,880 --> 00:28:43,840
Speaker 3: this is when it eventually blew. The other guy got

540
00:28:43,880 --> 00:28:48,800
Speaker 3: like six or eight pictures. There was a family camping

541
00:28:48,840 --> 00:28:51,440
Speaker 3: with their two young daughters. Oh Man, and that guy.

542
00:28:51,880 --> 00:28:54,640
Speaker 3: They were you know on the north side, you know,

543
00:28:54,680 --> 00:28:57,720
Speaker 3: well below it, but you know, within the range. And

544
00:28:57,800 --> 00:29:00,720
Speaker 3: he was like, you know, speaking to how it didn't

545
00:29:00,760 --> 00:29:02,440
Speaker 3: blow from the top, he said, it looked like somebody

546
00:29:02,480 --> 00:29:05,040
Speaker 3: shot a shotgun right out of the side of this

547
00:29:05,200 --> 00:29:09,040
Speaker 3: mountain pointed at us. So ash was raining down, but

548
00:29:09,120 --> 00:29:12,760
Speaker 3: it was raining like at people unless down from the

549
00:29:12,760 --> 00:29:14,440
Speaker 3: sky right exactly.

550
00:29:14,480 --> 00:29:16,160
Speaker 2: It wasn't going up and then coming back down. It

551
00:29:16,200 --> 00:29:19,000
Speaker 2: was coming straight at you if you were anywhere north

552
00:29:19,040 --> 00:29:19,640
Speaker 2: of the mountain.

553
00:29:19,720 --> 00:29:20,480
Speaker 3: Yeah.

554
00:29:20,520 --> 00:29:22,360
Speaker 2: And the reason why the north of the mountain was

555
00:29:22,360 --> 00:29:24,640
Speaker 2: so dangerous is because that's where that hump had been.

556
00:29:24,840 --> 00:29:28,000
Speaker 2: That's also where the earthquake moved a good portion of

557
00:29:28,040 --> 00:29:31,080
Speaker 2: the mountain, which meant that all that pressure that was

558
00:29:31,160 --> 00:29:36,520
Speaker 2: keeping that pressurized, superheated water from boiling under the mountain

559
00:29:36,840 --> 00:29:40,239
Speaker 2: was suddenly exposed. It was that pressure was gone, and

560
00:29:40,280 --> 00:29:45,400
Speaker 2: so all of that incredibly hot water flash heated into steam.

561
00:29:46,280 --> 00:29:49,040
Speaker 2: And when that happens, that expands, Like you said, The

562
00:29:49,080 --> 00:29:51,800
Speaker 2: reason that one of the reasons steam can't exist in

563
00:29:51,840 --> 00:29:56,400
Speaker 2: that situation is because it's too expansive. When it does

564
00:29:56,440 --> 00:30:01,040
Speaker 2: have the chance to expand, it does so within incredible force.

565
00:30:01,120 --> 00:30:03,040
Speaker 1: Yeah, and that's what happened.

566
00:30:03,080 --> 00:30:05,960
Speaker 2: That's why Mount Saint Helens blew out the side rather

567
00:30:06,000 --> 00:30:08,800
Speaker 2: than the top, because there had been a weakening and

568
00:30:08,840 --> 00:30:11,800
Speaker 2: the pressure that allowed all that to just blow out

569
00:30:12,240 --> 00:30:13,040
Speaker 2: and blow.

570
00:30:12,800 --> 00:30:13,400
Speaker 1: Out it did.

571
00:30:13,920 --> 00:30:17,240
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean it was If you look at it,

572
00:30:17,240 --> 00:30:20,880
Speaker 3: it looks almost like a controlled demolition blast or something.

573
00:30:21,720 --> 00:30:24,000
Speaker 3: It definitely doesn't look like any kind of volcano blast

574
00:30:24,080 --> 00:30:26,840
Speaker 3: that you might think of in your head. It happened

575
00:30:26,880 --> 00:30:29,160
Speaker 3: kind of all at once, and it was a twenty

576
00:30:29,320 --> 00:30:33,640
Speaker 3: four mega ton blast, which I know everyone always tries

577
00:30:33,680 --> 00:30:37,080
Speaker 3: to compare it to like Hiroshima. It was sixteen hundred

578
00:30:37,160 --> 00:30:41,560
Speaker 3: times as powerful as the Hiroshima atomic bomb.

579
00:30:41,880 --> 00:30:44,080
Speaker 2: Good lord, but I mean that's what it would take

580
00:30:44,120 --> 00:30:48,600
Speaker 2: to move zero point six square cubic miles of mountain

581
00:30:48,640 --> 00:30:51,520
Speaker 2: all of a sudden too, you know. Yeah, and that

582
00:30:51,920 --> 00:30:55,600
Speaker 2: blast chuck, that twenty four mega ton blast. It was

583
00:30:55,680 --> 00:31:00,960
Speaker 2: described as like a fast moving cloud of heat in stones,

584
00:31:01,680 --> 00:31:04,520
Speaker 2: moving at some points pretty close to the mountain three

585
00:31:04,560 --> 00:31:07,920
Speaker 2: hundred miles an hour. He did to like six hundred

586
00:31:07,920 --> 00:31:10,240
Speaker 2: and sixty degrees fahrenheit. I think that's like three hundred

587
00:31:10,240 --> 00:31:15,760
Speaker 2: and eighty degrees celsius, just blowing northward away from the mountain,

588
00:31:16,240 --> 00:31:21,120
Speaker 2: and everything within eight miles of that of the mountain

589
00:31:21,560 --> 00:31:24,560
Speaker 2: was in that blast zone. And if you'll recall correctly,

590
00:31:24,920 --> 00:31:31,440
Speaker 2: David Johnston's cold Water to camp was within about five miles.

591
00:31:32,160 --> 00:31:35,280
Speaker 3: Yeah, he obviously didn't make it. They found I think

592
00:31:35,320 --> 00:31:37,640
Speaker 3: they found pieces of his trailer. Like a decade later.

593
00:31:38,560 --> 00:31:41,200
Speaker 3: He had time to send out one signal which was

594
00:31:42,240 --> 00:31:46,960
Speaker 3: over his radio Vancouver, Vancouver, this is it. The only

595
00:31:47,000 --> 00:31:50,120
Speaker 3: person to pick that up was a Ham radio operator nearby,

596
00:31:51,000 --> 00:31:55,800
Speaker 3: and they renamed that Aria Johnston Ridge in his honor. Obviously,

597
00:31:55,840 --> 00:32:00,280
Speaker 3: Harry Truman perished along with those sixteen cats, and he

598
00:32:00,440 --> 00:32:03,880
Speaker 3: was close enough to where I saw that. They said

599
00:32:03,880 --> 00:32:09,120
Speaker 3: that he and everything around him was basically instantly vaporized,

600
00:32:09,160 --> 00:32:11,640
Speaker 3: Like he wouldn't have felt anything. It would have happened

601
00:32:12,000 --> 00:32:15,080
Speaker 3: his death, and vaporization would have happened in like less

602
00:32:15,120 --> 00:32:15,680
Speaker 3: than a second.

603
00:32:16,160 --> 00:32:18,400
Speaker 2: Yeah, I have the impression the same thing happened to

604
00:32:18,480 --> 00:32:22,560
Speaker 2: David Johnston, and also that Ham radio operator who was

605
00:32:22,680 --> 00:32:27,760
Speaker 2: volunteering to kind of document it he documented David Johnston

606
00:32:28,480 --> 00:32:33,440
Speaker 2: getting covered up. He said, he said, gentlemen, the camper

607
00:32:33,520 --> 00:32:35,720
Speaker 2: and the car that's sitting over to the south of me.

608
00:32:35,800 --> 00:32:38,640
Speaker 2: He was talking about David Johnston is covered is going

609
00:32:38,680 --> 00:32:41,240
Speaker 2: to hit me too. And that was Jerry Martin, that

610
00:32:41,320 --> 00:32:44,520
Speaker 2: Ham radio operator and that was his last transmission. He

611
00:32:44,600 --> 00:32:49,160
Speaker 2: was vaporized as well. Essentially everything everything north of the

612
00:32:49,200 --> 00:32:55,160
Speaker 2: mountain within eight miles was just destroyed, just destroyed, like

613
00:32:55,520 --> 00:32:58,840
Speaker 2: entire one hundred foot trees that were like ten twelve

614
00:32:58,920 --> 00:33:03,240
Speaker 2: feet in diameter just completely flatten and also denuded.

615
00:33:02,800 --> 00:33:04,600
Speaker 1: Of any bark on the way as well.

616
00:33:05,520 --> 00:33:10,239
Speaker 2: And this was just a blast that the landslide that

617
00:33:10,360 --> 00:33:14,640
Speaker 2: was created from the earthquake that initially triggered the eruption

618
00:33:15,880 --> 00:33:18,520
Speaker 2: that had in some incredible effects as well.

619
00:33:18,960 --> 00:33:21,960
Speaker 3: Yeah, because what you've got, you know, beyond this avalanche happening,

620
00:33:22,000 --> 00:33:24,160
Speaker 3: is you've got all of a sudden, all this heat

621
00:33:24,200 --> 00:33:26,080
Speaker 3: happens in a place where there's a lot of snow,

622
00:33:26,720 --> 00:33:30,600
Speaker 3: so that snow melts, all that glacier ice melts, and

623
00:33:30,960 --> 00:33:34,440
Speaker 3: you have flooding and you have mud slides, and you

624
00:33:34,520 --> 00:33:36,520
Speaker 3: have a word that I had never even heard of before.

625
00:33:36,640 --> 00:33:40,760
Speaker 3: Ed included it in here, which was Lahar, which sounds

626
00:33:40,800 --> 00:33:43,680
Speaker 3: like just a mud slide on steroids. Yeah, like a

627
00:33:43,720 --> 00:33:48,800
Speaker 3: mudside carrying ammunition with it. And this is just raining

628
00:33:48,880 --> 00:33:52,600
Speaker 3: down everywhere and like causing a path of destruction that

629
00:33:52,600 --> 00:33:55,480
Speaker 3: hasn't been seen in like modern times in this country.

630
00:33:55,680 --> 00:33:57,960
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was like it had so much power chuck

631
00:33:58,040 --> 00:34:01,960
Speaker 2: that slide did that one part of it was carrying

632
00:34:02,040 --> 00:34:05,560
Speaker 2: chunks of rock as big as five hundred and fifty

633
00:34:05,560 --> 00:34:08,800
Speaker 2: eight feet or seven hundred and seventy meters across. Wow,

634
00:34:08,840 --> 00:34:12,200
Speaker 2: that's as big as a fifty story building. It was

635
00:34:12,280 --> 00:34:16,160
Speaker 2: moving rocks that size just fast as you can imagine,

636
00:34:16,200 --> 00:34:18,759
Speaker 2: down the mountain into the valleys. And I saw it

637
00:34:18,800 --> 00:34:21,520
Speaker 2: described as if you were watching it from a ridge,

638
00:34:21,560 --> 00:34:21,919
Speaker 2: as some.

639
00:34:21,840 --> 00:34:23,520
Speaker 1: People were, like far away.

640
00:34:24,080 --> 00:34:27,760
Speaker 2: You would see the cloud the debris starting to come

641
00:34:28,200 --> 00:34:30,719
Speaker 2: at you. It would disappear into a valley, and then

642
00:34:30,719 --> 00:34:32,160
Speaker 2: all of a sudden, it would come up over the

643
00:34:32,239 --> 00:34:36,719
Speaker 2: ridge and keep going. It was just filling valleys with

644
00:34:36,880 --> 00:34:42,200
Speaker 2: rocks and debris. It's just it's unimaginable trying to grasp

645
00:34:42,280 --> 00:34:45,799
Speaker 2: what happened. And it's even crazier that some people were

646
00:34:45,800 --> 00:34:47,720
Speaker 2: actually there watching this happen.

647
00:34:48,480 --> 00:34:49,600
Speaker 3: Crazy.

648
00:34:49,640 --> 00:34:52,560
Speaker 1: It is crazy. You want to take a break.

649
00:34:52,640 --> 00:34:54,239
Speaker 3: Yeah, we'll take a break and talk a little bit

650
00:34:54,239 --> 00:34:56,120
Speaker 3: more about the after effects right after this.

651
00:35:22,000 --> 00:35:25,000
Speaker 2: Okay, and we're back, And as Chuck promised everyone, it's.

652
00:35:25,000 --> 00:35:26,200
Speaker 1: After effect time.

653
00:35:27,120 --> 00:35:30,560
Speaker 3: Well, we talked a little bit about it. Obviously, Spirit Lake,

654
00:35:30,600 --> 00:35:32,319
Speaker 3: which we mentioned at the beginning, which was at the

655
00:35:32,320 --> 00:35:37,000
Speaker 3: base of the mountain, has a very strange effects on

656
00:35:37,120 --> 00:35:40,759
Speaker 3: bodies of water. It did two things. It made the

657
00:35:40,840 --> 00:35:44,600
Speaker 3: lake larger, but it also made it shallower, because it

658
00:35:44,680 --> 00:35:47,279
Speaker 3: just flooded all this water down there and raised it

659
00:35:47,320 --> 00:35:50,759
Speaker 3: such that the outlet was basically dammed up, and so

660
00:35:50,800 --> 00:35:52,720
Speaker 3: the lake got a whole lot bigger, but it reduced

661
00:35:52,760 --> 00:35:55,799
Speaker 3: its depth by about eighty feet. I think five years

662
00:35:55,880 --> 00:35:59,680
Speaker 3: later they built a spillway tunnel to control the depth

663
00:35:59,680 --> 00:36:04,040
Speaker 3: of the lake. Two hundred homes and cabins and about

664
00:36:04,080 --> 00:36:08,120
Speaker 3: two hundred miles of road and railways were completely obliterated.

665
00:36:08,680 --> 00:36:12,640
Speaker 2: Yeah, I also saw that lake was now two hundred

666
00:36:12,719 --> 00:36:15,839
Speaker 2: feet higher in elevation than it had been before, as

667
00:36:15,840 --> 00:36:18,800
Speaker 2: if like there was so much debris it like raised

668
00:36:18,800 --> 00:36:21,520
Speaker 2: the lake two hundred feet, even though it also made

669
00:36:21,560 --> 00:36:23,240
Speaker 2: it shallow or it's nuts.

670
00:36:22,960 --> 00:36:25,160
Speaker 3: And I think it lowered the ultimate height of Mount

671
00:36:25,200 --> 00:36:25,960
Speaker 3: Saint Helens.

672
00:36:25,760 --> 00:36:29,959
Speaker 2: Right, yeah, I can't remember. I think by like six

673
00:36:30,040 --> 00:36:33,359
Speaker 2: hundred meters or something like that. Some ridiculous amount of

674
00:36:33,400 --> 00:36:36,960
Speaker 2: height just blown off. And that was another thing too,

675
00:36:37,040 --> 00:36:39,920
Speaker 2: like the after effects of it. If you look at

676
00:36:39,920 --> 00:36:44,040
Speaker 2: Mount Saint Helens today or especially like right afterward, it

677
00:36:44,280 --> 00:36:46,919
Speaker 2: turned into like an amphitheater. Yeah, like the north side

678
00:36:47,000 --> 00:36:48,759
Speaker 2: was blown out and the other sides were kind of

679
00:36:48,800 --> 00:36:51,360
Speaker 2: curved around and what was neat is one of the

680
00:36:51,440 --> 00:36:53,799
Speaker 2: huge after effects of Mount Saint Helens. One of the

681
00:36:53,800 --> 00:36:56,239
Speaker 2: more positive ones is I saw it described as like

682
00:36:56,280 --> 00:37:01,640
Speaker 2: a crash course for volcanologists, Malls and everybody who are

683
00:37:01,680 --> 00:37:05,799
Speaker 2: now just had this amazing natural laboratory to study in,

684
00:37:06,239 --> 00:37:09,200
Speaker 2: and that the eruption, because it was the lateral blast,

685
00:37:09,600 --> 00:37:12,800
Speaker 2: opened up like basically a cross section of the mountain

686
00:37:13,120 --> 00:37:16,560
Speaker 2: that they could study. Now it's past history from the

687
00:37:16,600 --> 00:37:18,560
Speaker 2: inside out, which I thought was pretty neat.

688
00:37:18,800 --> 00:37:21,560
Speaker 3: And a young tray Anastasia said, one day I shall

689
00:37:21,600 --> 00:37:24,440
Speaker 3: play at the bates of that amphitheater. Oh did he

690
00:37:24,600 --> 00:37:26,840
Speaker 3: and bore people with noodling on.

691
00:37:26,719 --> 00:37:29,719
Speaker 1: My guitar they played there?

692
00:37:29,880 --> 00:37:31,600
Speaker 3: No, I don't think so. I don't think there's anything there.

693
00:37:31,640 --> 00:37:32,240
Speaker 3: I was just kidding.

694
00:37:32,640 --> 00:37:35,200
Speaker 2: Oh wow, that was just completely made.

695
00:37:35,320 --> 00:37:37,720
Speaker 3: I never will miss a chance to take a ticket fish.

696
00:37:38,000 --> 00:37:38,480
Speaker 1: I'm with you.

697
00:37:40,040 --> 00:37:44,760
Speaker 3: So ash is raining down and out. It literally darkened

698
00:37:44,800 --> 00:37:48,040
Speaker 3: the skies. When this ash, if you were close enough

699
00:37:48,080 --> 00:37:52,120
Speaker 3: to it, it would literally burn you alive. If you're

700
00:37:52,320 --> 00:37:54,840
Speaker 3: far away, it can just create a lot of problems,

701
00:37:54,880 --> 00:37:59,560
Speaker 3: everything from you know, just equipment not working, electrical ottages

702
00:37:59,600 --> 00:38:05,000
Speaker 3: and blacks and brown outs. Visibility is obviously terrible. As

703
00:38:05,000 --> 00:38:08,600
Speaker 3: far as crops go, certain crops were wiped out by

704
00:38:08,640 --> 00:38:12,160
Speaker 3: this ash and the toxic gases. Some of them did

705
00:38:12,200 --> 00:38:14,520
Speaker 3: a little bit better because they just got a little

706
00:38:14,520 --> 00:38:17,120
Speaker 3: bit of the ash and it ash will help promote

707
00:38:17,200 --> 00:38:20,520
Speaker 3: rainfall and hold moisture in the ground better. So apparently

708
00:38:20,520 --> 00:38:23,319
Speaker 3: wheat crops and apple crops fared pretty well.

709
00:38:24,040 --> 00:38:25,000
Speaker 1: Yeah, that was surprising.

710
00:38:25,120 --> 00:38:28,000
Speaker 2: Yeah, I also saw and there was a lot of devastation.

711
00:38:28,160 --> 00:38:31,759
Speaker 2: Any big game animal in the blast zone was I said,

712
00:38:31,840 --> 00:38:35,520
Speaker 2: big game animal, by the way, was in the blast

713
00:38:35,600 --> 00:38:40,320
Speaker 2: zone was killed without question. But they they were very surprised.

714
00:38:40,360 --> 00:38:43,880
Speaker 2: Biologists who went in to investigate shortly afterward found there

715
00:38:43,880 --> 00:38:49,279
Speaker 2: were like entire communities and ecosystems of smaller animals and plants, microbes,

716
00:38:49,360 --> 00:38:53,279
Speaker 2: fungi that had survived just fine. And we're among the

717
00:38:53,320 --> 00:38:56,040
Speaker 2: first to recolonize, and we're part of the reason why

718
00:38:57,239 --> 00:39:01,600
Speaker 2: Mount Saint Helen's ecosystem started to bound so quickly.

719
00:39:02,080 --> 00:39:05,040
Speaker 3: I mean, that's what'll happen, right if the Earth ever

720
00:39:05,160 --> 00:39:07,880
Speaker 3: just burns up into a fiery ball, that'll just become

721
00:39:07,880 --> 00:39:09,280
Speaker 3: a big mushroom field, right.

722
00:39:09,800 --> 00:39:12,879
Speaker 2: Probably, and then the animals that lived underground will come

723
00:39:12,920 --> 00:39:15,120
Speaker 2: above ground and say it's our.

724
00:39:15,000 --> 00:39:16,600
Speaker 1: Time, baby. I'll look forward to that.

725
00:39:17,000 --> 00:39:21,440
Speaker 2: For some reason, what else happened? Oh, I saw that

726
00:39:21,480 --> 00:39:25,919
Speaker 2: the ash cloud that blew finally out of the top.

727
00:39:25,960 --> 00:39:29,480
Speaker 2: We should say that the lateral blast was followed by

728
00:39:29,480 --> 00:39:33,239
Speaker 2: a plinium blast, and that shot, like you know, that

729
00:39:33,360 --> 00:39:36,120
Speaker 2: was the money volcano shot that everybody was looking for.

730
00:39:36,719 --> 00:39:40,000
Speaker 2: A plume of ash and smoke rose eighty thousand feet

731
00:39:40,080 --> 00:39:42,880
Speaker 2: into the air, and it was moving so fast that

732
00:39:42,920 --> 00:39:45,800
Speaker 2: it circled the globe in fifteen days, came back to

733
00:39:45,880 --> 00:39:48,680
Speaker 2: square one in fifteen days. And of course that was

734
00:39:48,719 --> 00:39:53,360
Speaker 2: like affecting air traffic. Do you remember that icelandic volcano

735
00:39:53,440 --> 00:39:55,479
Speaker 2: that affected air traffic in Europe for like weeks?

736
00:39:55,560 --> 00:39:58,800
Speaker 1: Yeah, weren't you stranded by that or something. No, Okay,

737
00:39:58,840 --> 00:39:59,840
Speaker 1: I don't think so.

738
00:40:00,000 --> 00:40:04,600
Speaker 2: Okay, It like they knew what to do in part

739
00:40:04,760 --> 00:40:08,399
Speaker 2: because of how Mount Saint Helen's affected air travel at

740
00:40:08,400 --> 00:40:10,839
Speaker 2: the time. They were like, this is brand new to us,

741
00:40:11,640 --> 00:40:14,600
Speaker 2: but it helped lay the ground work for understanding what

742
00:40:14,719 --> 00:40:16,400
Speaker 2: to look for, how to deal with that kind of

743
00:40:16,400 --> 00:40:17,160
Speaker 2: stuff later on.

744
00:40:17,840 --> 00:40:19,799
Speaker 3: Yeah. The the other thing I wanted to point out

745
00:40:19,800 --> 00:40:22,600
Speaker 3: too about Spirit Lake was if you look at footage

746
00:40:22,640 --> 00:40:26,000
Speaker 3: of the lake and now these kind of rivers that

747
00:40:26,080 --> 00:40:29,799
Speaker 3: were just happening, and it literally like re routed you know,

748
00:40:29,840 --> 00:40:34,040
Speaker 3: the Columbia River and the Cowlitz River in sections, but

749
00:40:34,160 --> 00:40:38,239
Speaker 3: it looks like it looks like a logging operation is happening. Yeah,

750
00:40:38,440 --> 00:40:41,000
Speaker 3: and like you could almost and may have been able.

751
00:40:41,120 --> 00:40:43,120
Speaker 3: Well obviously it's been too dangerous, but it looks like

752
00:40:43,200 --> 00:40:46,360
Speaker 3: you could have walked over these logs. They were so

753
00:40:46,719 --> 00:40:49,520
Speaker 3: like packed and these were just trees, you know, an

754
00:40:49,520 --> 00:40:50,120
Speaker 3: hour before.

755
00:40:50,719 --> 00:40:54,440
Speaker 1: Yeah, if you could do that lumberjack log rolling thing.

756
00:40:54,440 --> 00:40:57,480
Speaker 2: Yeah, you could have probably made it across the light.

757
00:40:57,560 --> 00:40:59,839
Speaker 1: We could have, but they're in that minute by minute.

758
00:41:00,080 --> 00:41:02,480
Speaker 2: But so there was a pair of like high school

759
00:41:02,480 --> 00:41:05,520
Speaker 2: sweethearts who've been camping. Yeah, and they had a harrowing

760
00:41:05,600 --> 00:41:09,640
Speaker 2: experience because they both got thrown into Spirit Lake and

761
00:41:10,360 --> 00:41:12,920
Speaker 2: the boyfriend was able to rescue the girlfriend is like

762
00:41:13,000 --> 00:41:15,080
Speaker 2: the logs were starting to close in on him. He

763
00:41:15,440 --> 00:41:17,960
Speaker 2: pulled her out from the lake and they were hanging

764
00:41:18,000 --> 00:41:20,440
Speaker 2: on to logs when they finally made it out and

765
00:41:20,480 --> 00:41:24,560
Speaker 2: were rescued. That happened like that happened to somebody.

766
00:41:24,560 --> 00:41:25,480
Speaker 3: They were in their car.

767
00:41:26,160 --> 00:41:28,440
Speaker 1: Oh, that's how they got in the lake. They were

768
00:41:28,480 --> 00:41:29,399
Speaker 1: in their car. Yeah.

769
00:41:29,440 --> 00:41:31,120
Speaker 3: They said it just picked them up and all they

770
00:41:31,160 --> 00:41:34,000
Speaker 3: were driving and then they were floating and they said

771
00:41:34,000 --> 00:41:36,200
Speaker 3: that they're you know there, she said, like my instinct

772
00:41:36,239 --> 00:41:37,680
Speaker 3: was to get out of the car, but there was

773
00:41:37,719 --> 00:41:38,880
Speaker 3: like nowhere to go.

774
00:41:39,239 --> 00:41:42,960
Speaker 2: Right yeah, because there were trees everywhere floating around beside them.

775
00:41:42,840 --> 00:41:45,239
Speaker 3: Right yeah. And this is you know, these are just

776
00:41:45,280 --> 00:41:47,719
Speaker 3: sort of That's what's so cool about the special is

777
00:41:47,760 --> 00:41:49,880
Speaker 3: it really brought in the human element of these people

778
00:41:49,920 --> 00:41:52,600
Speaker 3: that were around there, right and they you know, they

779
00:41:52,640 --> 00:41:57,239
Speaker 3: all survived because they were being interviewed. Obviously Dorothy Stoffel,

780
00:41:57,440 --> 00:42:02,279
Speaker 3: who was the geologist that was flying. I guess was

781
00:42:02,360 --> 00:42:05,719
Speaker 3: her husband Keith or was that her brother her husband Keith?

782
00:42:05,800 --> 00:42:05,880
Speaker 2: Oh?

783
00:42:05,840 --> 00:42:09,920
Speaker 3: Okay, they survived that plane flight like they got out

784
00:42:09,920 --> 00:42:13,239
Speaker 3: of there. There were stories of people that literally it

785
00:42:13,320 --> 00:42:15,759
Speaker 3: was like it from a movie, drove, you know, one

786
00:42:15,840 --> 00:42:19,239
Speaker 3: hundred and ten miles an hour, like out running this

787
00:42:19,760 --> 00:42:22,680
Speaker 3: ash debris slide coming out right.

788
00:42:23,360 --> 00:42:25,680
Speaker 2: Yeah, and some people didn't make it. So there was

789
00:42:25,760 --> 00:42:28,920
Speaker 2: one guy who was chronicled in that that was driving

790
00:42:28,960 --> 00:42:32,080
Speaker 2: as fast as he can in the blasts just caught

791
00:42:32,160 --> 00:42:35,200
Speaker 2: up with him and buried him in the in the

792
00:42:35,280 --> 00:42:40,560
Speaker 2: ash and he probably died pretty much instantly. But like again,

793
00:42:40,640 --> 00:42:43,520
Speaker 2: that happened to people. There's very famous footage of a

794
00:42:43,600 --> 00:42:49,120
Speaker 2: house just flowing down like a newly engorged mud slidey river,

795
00:42:50,120 --> 00:42:52,520
Speaker 2: moving so fast that you probably could have towed water

796
00:42:52,560 --> 00:42:55,640
Speaker 2: skiers from the house. Essentially, it was moving that fast

797
00:42:55,760 --> 00:42:58,880
Speaker 2: just down the river. So I mean again, it was

798
00:42:58,920 --> 00:43:03,400
Speaker 2: one of the most doc documented volcanic eruptions of all times.

799
00:43:03,400 --> 00:43:06,239
Speaker 2: So there's really amazing footage on there or just on

800
00:43:06,280 --> 00:43:09,160
Speaker 2: the internet, is what I mean. But that wasn't the

801
00:43:09,239 --> 00:43:13,399
Speaker 2: last time that Mount Saint Helens has erupted. I think

802
00:43:13,719 --> 00:43:17,080
Speaker 2: it erupted a few times between nineteen eighty and maybe

803
00:43:17,520 --> 00:43:21,600
Speaker 2: nineteen ninety six, I think, yeah, and then the biggest

804
00:43:21,600 --> 00:43:24,319
Speaker 2: one recently was between two thousand and four and two

805
00:43:24,360 --> 00:43:25,080
Speaker 2: thousand and eight.

806
00:43:25,719 --> 00:43:27,840
Speaker 3: Yeah, it started sort of getting a little more active

807
00:43:27,880 --> 00:43:31,360
Speaker 3: again this time though. You know, one of the things

808
00:43:31,360 --> 00:43:35,120
Speaker 3: that to the benefit of the surrounding area when a

809
00:43:35,200 --> 00:43:38,759
Speaker 3: volcano blows like that is that pressure is released and

810
00:43:38,880 --> 00:43:40,600
Speaker 3: it's going to take a long time to build back

811
00:43:40,640 --> 00:43:43,680
Speaker 3: up to that level again, kind of depending on how

812
00:43:43,719 --> 00:43:46,840
Speaker 3: it reforms on top of it. But this time, apparently

813
00:43:46,880 --> 00:43:50,480
Speaker 3: there are there are more ways for this pressure to

814
00:43:50,520 --> 00:43:53,759
Speaker 3: be released. So I think it's just sort of the

815
00:43:53,760 --> 00:43:57,200
Speaker 3: pressures being released a little more gradually since the two thousand.

816
00:43:56,840 --> 00:43:58,760
Speaker 1: And four that's my impression too.

817
00:43:59,200 --> 00:44:01,920
Speaker 3: But they do say that like, oh no, like it

818
00:44:02,000 --> 00:44:05,880
Speaker 3: will happen again, like things are there is a new

819
00:44:05,960 --> 00:44:09,600
Speaker 3: lava dome growing, and the pressure is going to build up,

820
00:44:09,640 --> 00:44:12,120
Speaker 3: and it could be in a thousand years or it

821
00:44:12,160 --> 00:44:13,280
Speaker 3: could be in ten years.

822
00:44:13,719 --> 00:44:15,239
Speaker 1: Yeah, we just don't know.

823
00:44:15,320 --> 00:44:17,759
Speaker 3: Now, but they are studying it. Like there there's a

824
00:44:17,800 --> 00:44:21,040
Speaker 3: lot of active research and study going on at Mount

825
00:44:21,040 --> 00:44:21,839
Speaker 3: Saint Helens now.

826
00:44:22,080 --> 00:44:24,080
Speaker 2: Yeah, I believe, you know, the eruption was such a

827
00:44:24,080 --> 00:44:27,560
Speaker 2: big deal that they've opened the USGS opened a research

828
00:44:27,600 --> 00:44:33,319
Speaker 2: station nearby, and also that two thousand and four activity

829
00:44:33,760 --> 00:44:35,880
Speaker 2: basically ran from two thousand and four to two thousand

830
00:44:35,880 --> 00:44:38,480
Speaker 2: and eight. Like you said, they've been studying the mountain closely.

831
00:44:38,760 --> 00:44:43,160
Speaker 2: So there's amazing time lapse footage of those four years,

832
00:44:43,760 --> 00:44:47,479
Speaker 2: and it's astounding how fast and how big Mount Saint

833
00:44:47,480 --> 00:44:51,800
Speaker 2: Helens just grows from that eruption activity called time lapse

834
00:44:51,840 --> 00:44:57,360
Speaker 2: Images of Mount Saint Helen's dome growth. It's on YouTube

835
00:44:58,440 --> 00:45:00,560
Speaker 2: and I recommend checking that as well.

836
00:45:01,200 --> 00:45:04,120
Speaker 3: Yeah, I would just be careful when you google dome growth.

837
00:45:05,960 --> 00:45:06,960
Speaker 1: Or bulge growth.

838
00:45:07,360 --> 00:45:08,759
Speaker 3: Oh boy.

839
00:45:08,960 --> 00:45:11,880
Speaker 1: So man, we are so juvenile sometimes, aren't we?

840
00:45:12,040 --> 00:45:12,360
Speaker 3: Sure?

841
00:45:12,640 --> 00:45:13,719
Speaker 1: And by we I mean me?

842
00:45:14,000 --> 00:45:14,600
Speaker 3: No, me too.

843
00:45:15,680 --> 00:45:18,680
Speaker 2: But like we said, Mount Saint Helens bounce back, Spirit

844
00:45:18,760 --> 00:45:21,160
Speaker 2: Lake open back up and the cold Water two station

845
00:45:21,360 --> 00:45:24,800
Speaker 2: has been renamed after David Johnston and there's an amazing

846
00:45:24,840 --> 00:45:27,279
Speaker 2: memorial too. I saw on some trip Advisor post that

847
00:45:27,320 --> 00:45:29,440
Speaker 2: somebody so that it was like the one of the best,

848
00:45:31,040 --> 00:45:34,600
Speaker 2: like not welcome center, but you know, information centers that

849
00:45:34,640 --> 00:45:35,719
Speaker 2: the person's ever been to.

850
00:45:35,880 --> 00:45:41,319
Speaker 1: So I would like to go there, Right, You got

851
00:45:41,320 --> 00:45:41,879
Speaker 1: anything else?

852
00:45:42,000 --> 00:45:43,680
Speaker 3: I got nothing else? All?

853
00:45:43,760 --> 00:45:44,520
Speaker 1: Right, we go.

854
00:45:44,440 --> 00:45:49,160
Speaker 2: Forth and research Mount Saint Helen's with an S. And

855
00:45:49,239 --> 00:45:52,959
Speaker 2: you can start doing that by watching Dante's Peak. Since

856
00:45:52,960 --> 00:45:55,479
Speaker 2: I said Dante's Peak, it's time for listener mail.

857
00:45:57,480 --> 00:45:59,800
Speaker 3: This is following up on an email that you particularly

858
00:46:00,280 --> 00:46:04,080
Speaker 3: from our spectacular. Okay, hey, guys, thoroughly enjoying the most

859
00:46:04,120 --> 00:46:08,279
Speaker 3: recent spectacular. The accents are comedy genius. Megal, do you

860
00:46:08,280 --> 00:46:14,319
Speaker 3: want to pop in and say Hi, Hello, perfect I'm

861
00:46:14,320 --> 00:46:15,920
Speaker 3: going to bring Migal back every now and then. By

862
00:46:15,920 --> 00:46:18,160
Speaker 3: the way, I just want to prepare you in the audience.

863
00:46:19,080 --> 00:46:21,359
Speaker 3: I wanted to address a couple of eighteen hundred's diction

864
00:46:21,520 --> 00:46:24,359
Speaker 3: issues that cause some puzzlement when you got talked about

865
00:46:24,400 --> 00:46:27,360
Speaker 3: toilet It's basically what Josh said. I've always thought of

866
00:46:27,400 --> 00:46:30,160
Speaker 3: it as a refreshing as freshening up in the bathroom,

867
00:46:30,280 --> 00:46:32,640
Speaker 3: washing her face and hands when first waking up or

868
00:46:32,640 --> 00:46:35,120
Speaker 3: going to bed. I double check with Merriam Webster, though,

869
00:46:35,160 --> 00:46:38,040
Speaker 3: and it's more generally dressing and grooming.

870
00:46:38,400 --> 00:46:39,960
Speaker 1: Okay, that makes sense.

871
00:46:40,280 --> 00:46:43,440
Speaker 3: Yeah, sure. On the other hand, the strangers in the

872
00:46:43,480 --> 00:46:46,560
Speaker 3: beverage from the toll House is a lot more puzzling. Yes,

873
00:46:46,600 --> 00:46:48,840
Speaker 3: I had no idea what it meant. And although Josh's

874
00:46:48,920 --> 00:46:51,680
Speaker 3: guess that beverage meant the pub was clever, it doesn't

875
00:46:51,680 --> 00:46:54,840
Speaker 3: really make sense, just as a reminder, the sentence is

876
00:46:54,880 --> 00:46:57,719
Speaker 3: talking about some men drinking tea in an inn and

877
00:46:57,800 --> 00:47:02,000
Speaker 3: pausing to quote discover the sex and dates of arrival

878
00:47:02,080 --> 00:47:05,160
Speaker 3: of the strangers, which floated in some numbers in the

879
00:47:05,160 --> 00:47:08,640
Speaker 3: beverage end quote. I think I found the answer, though, guys,

880
00:47:08,680 --> 00:47:12,080
Speaker 3: in a dictionary of Scottish dialect. We love this stuff.

881
00:47:12,080 --> 00:47:13,360
Speaker 1: By the way, yeah, this is amazing.

882
00:47:13,880 --> 00:47:15,880
Speaker 3: Tea leaves floating on the surface of your drink are

883
00:47:15,920 --> 00:47:18,759
Speaker 3: considered omens that you will meet someone new, So these

884
00:47:18,800 --> 00:47:21,680
Speaker 3: tea leaves are called strangers. If you pick up a

885
00:47:21,680 --> 00:47:24,799
Speaker 3: stranger and bite it, the toughness will tell you whether

886
00:47:24,880 --> 00:47:28,680
Speaker 3: the new acquaintance will be male or female. Amazing, amazing.

887
00:47:28,920 --> 00:47:30,520
Speaker 3: I'm gonna guess there's also a way to predict the

888
00:47:30,600 --> 00:47:33,040
Speaker 3: date you meet this person, although I didn't see reference

889
00:47:33,080 --> 00:47:35,399
Speaker 3: to that. So that's what the characters are doing, guys,

890
00:47:35,480 --> 00:47:38,200
Speaker 3: using tea leaves to predict the future. By the way,

891
00:47:38,280 --> 00:47:41,640
Speaker 3: other omens can also be strangers, like unburned candlewicks or

892
00:47:41,680 --> 00:47:44,160
Speaker 3: soot on grates. I've loved the show for years, look

893
00:47:44,200 --> 00:47:47,520
Speaker 3: forward to many more. That is a great email. Nat

894
00:47:47,640 --> 00:47:52,840
Speaker 3: Jacob's fantastic sleuthing yep, and we are super grateful.

895
00:47:52,800 --> 00:47:56,440
Speaker 2: Top to bottom, start to finish. Wonderful email. Also just

896
00:47:56,600 --> 00:48:00,359
Speaker 2: put so nicely too, not like you big dummies, Yeah,

897
00:48:00,520 --> 00:48:04,440
Speaker 2: because I got it pretty wrong. It was a terrible guess.

898
00:48:04,560 --> 00:48:06,600
Speaker 2: But I mean that was really hard like you. That

899
00:48:06,760 --> 00:48:10,439
Speaker 2: was obscure, you know very much. Anyway, I love knowing

900
00:48:10,480 --> 00:48:12,400
Speaker 2: that now. That was one of my favorite emails. So

901
00:48:12,440 --> 00:48:14,120
Speaker 2: thanks a lot, Nat, And if you want to be

902
00:48:14,200 --> 00:48:15,680
Speaker 2: like Nat and get in touch with us in the

903
00:48:15,719 --> 00:48:18,960
Speaker 2: best way possible, you can send us an email to

904
00:48:19,080 --> 00:48:24,520
Speaker 2: Stuff Podcasts at iHeartRadio dot com.

905
00:48:25,640 --> 00:48:28,520
Speaker 3: Stuff you Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For

906
00:48:28,600 --> 00:48:32,799
Speaker 3: more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,

907
00:48:32,920 --> 00:48:34,760
Speaker 3: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.