WEBVTT - When Mount St. Helens Blew Its Top 0:00:01.440 --> 0:00:04.240 Welcome to Stuff you Should Know, a production of I 0:00:04.360 --> 0:00:14.560 Heart Radio. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh 0:00:14.560 --> 0:00:17.279 and there's Chuck and sitting in for Jerry today is 0:00:17.320 --> 0:00:21.560 our great friend and co producer Dave c and the 0:00:21.680 --> 0:00:27.320 sea stands for cool. Say hello, David, everybody, that's pretty. 0:00:27.680 --> 0:00:32.160 That's a really great Dave impression. He's a he's a troll. Yes, 0:00:32.520 --> 0:00:36.839 I always hear him is wal wal wal walt wal Uh. 0:00:37.040 --> 0:00:38.920 Dave is great. I wish you all knew him, but 0:00:39.080 --> 0:00:41.159 we do, and so he's ours. You're gonna have to 0:00:41.240 --> 0:00:44.400 take our word for it. That's right, speaking of take 0:00:44.440 --> 0:00:47.000 our word for it, Chuck, I have to say to 0:00:47.040 --> 0:00:49.120 all the people who don't know much about Mount St. 0:00:49.159 --> 0:00:52.599 Helen's prepared to have your socks knocked off, or your 0:00:52.760 --> 0:00:57.760 lid blown or your skin seared off of your your muscle. Yeah, 0:00:57.840 --> 0:00:59.920 this is a good one. This is uh. I mean, 0:01:00.080 --> 0:01:02.000 this is so bread and butter stuff you should know 0:01:02.800 --> 0:01:04.880 it is. I don't know why it took us almost 0:01:04.880 --> 0:01:07.160 sixteen years to get to it. And none of that 0:01:07.400 --> 0:01:11.360 margarine stuff are low fat. It's like full milk fat butter. 0:01:11.959 --> 0:01:14.720 Bread and butter stuff you should know salted butter, even 0:01:15.280 --> 0:01:17.440 you like salted Huh. It depends on what you're using 0:01:17.480 --> 0:01:21.280 it for. I like just plain unsalted butter, even on 0:01:21.400 --> 0:01:24.240 a bread and butter piece of like bread with butter. Yeah, 0:01:24.360 --> 0:01:27.039 mainly with like baking and cooking. It's like that's when 0:01:27.080 --> 0:01:30.360 it matters. Yeah, I got too. Um, what's your brand? 0:01:31.560 --> 0:01:35.280 Oh boy? It depends. I mean I love to get 0:01:35.440 --> 0:01:37.320 the hate to be that guy, but I dude, love 0:01:37.360 --> 0:01:39.000 to get the local butter when we get to our 0:01:39.480 --> 0:01:41.520 farmer's market and get it from our c s A. 0:01:41.959 --> 0:01:45.240 What's wrong with that? Well, I don't know. Can't you 0:01:45.319 --> 0:01:47.840 say parquake? Can you right? You must be a social 0:01:47.920 --> 0:01:50.720 justice warrior you buy local butter? Do you like that? 0:01:51.160 --> 0:01:53.640 What's the stuff? The Irish butter in the grocery store? 0:01:54.240 --> 0:01:58.280 That's my brand? Uh? Carry Gold? Carry Gold. That's good too, 0:01:58.840 --> 0:02:01.880 Like I've I've reached arched it, like I've literally researched 0:02:02.000 --> 0:02:04.040 but the butter because I want to get the most 0:02:04.080 --> 0:02:06.120 bang from my buck, and it is at the top 0:02:06.240 --> 0:02:09.359 of basically every list. It's of like any butter of 0:02:09.440 --> 0:02:12.600 any kind. It's really really good butter. Yeah, I totally agree. 0:02:12.639 --> 0:02:15.399 I love carry Gold. I take that stuff camping. Yeah, 0:02:15.680 --> 0:02:18.320 I carried it out in my pocket. Well, I like 0:02:18.440 --> 0:02:20.919 that you can get a tub. It's a smaller tub, 0:02:20.960 --> 0:02:22.919 but I do like a spreadable tub as opposed to 0:02:22.960 --> 0:02:25.480 a stick. I haven't seen the tub. We have a 0:02:25.560 --> 0:02:28.959 stick because we have a cute little butter dish, so 0:02:29.600 --> 0:02:33.960 we have we used the sticks. So anyway back to um, 0:02:34.160 --> 0:02:38.280 Mount St. Helen's the episode today. I was four years 0:02:38.320 --> 0:02:40.600 old when this happened, so I mean I didn't know 0:02:40.680 --> 0:02:42.760 what was going on, but I imagine you were like, 0:02:42.880 --> 0:02:44.880 holy cow, this is one of the most amazing things 0:02:44.919 --> 0:02:47.640 I've ever seen on my TV. Yeah, I was nine 0:02:47.880 --> 0:02:51.480 and I remember it being a big deal. But it's 0:02:51.480 --> 0:02:53.880 funny when I was researching this and then watching, UM, 0:02:54.360 --> 0:02:56.679 there's a really really great thing on YouTube that I 0:02:56.760 --> 0:03:00.359 recommend that A and He put out, You're ago it 0:03:00.440 --> 0:03:04.000 had to be. It was called minute by Minute Colin. Uh, 0:03:04.639 --> 0:03:08.120 the eruption of Mount St. Helen's really gripping stuff as 0:03:08.200 --> 0:03:10.359 a any used to do. You know, they probably still 0:03:10.400 --> 0:03:12.520 do that kind of stuff, but I don't know. Um, 0:03:12.639 --> 0:03:15.440 all of the media around it, I was thinking, like man, 0:03:15.560 --> 0:03:18.519 and I don't know if it was more regional or 0:03:18.520 --> 0:03:21.400 if it truly was nationwide. But I remember the eruption, 0:03:21.919 --> 0:03:25.160 but I didn't remember like the six weeks leading up 0:03:25.200 --> 0:03:29.079 to it, which was a very big deal. Yeah, although 0:03:29.160 --> 0:03:31.359 I think it was more of like a yeah, a 0:03:31.480 --> 0:03:34.320 regional thing for this the lead up. And then also 0:03:34.400 --> 0:03:39.080 if you were a geologist, a vulcanologists, a seismologist, anything 0:03:39.120 --> 0:03:42.360 that had to do with volcanoes erupting or mountains, then 0:03:42.520 --> 0:03:44.160 it would have been a big deal to you two. 0:03:44.200 --> 0:03:47.120 And it definitely attracted them from far and wide. And 0:03:47.280 --> 0:03:51.640 because there was so much warning, um, and it was 0:03:51.720 --> 0:03:54.200 able to buy it. I mean, Mount St. Helens was 0:03:54.280 --> 0:03:56.520 able to kind of draw to it like a magnet. 0:03:56.640 --> 0:04:01.960 All of these amazingly well trained researchers, Um, they were 0:04:02.040 --> 0:04:04.280 there when it went off. And it's probably the most 0:04:04.560 --> 0:04:08.720 best documented volcano in history because of that. Yeah, I mean, 0:04:08.760 --> 0:04:11.160 because like you said, the Mount st. Helens is basically 0:04:11.240 --> 0:04:14.720 saying it's coming everyone. Would you like to document this? Yeah, 0:04:14.720 --> 0:04:18.000 I'm telling you again, it's coming, and I'll show you 0:04:18.080 --> 0:04:21.000 in lots of different scary ways that it's coming. And 0:04:21.880 --> 0:04:28.760 people left, people stayed, people came there, people like tourists 0:04:28.800 --> 0:04:33.080 came to see this thing. So let's get into it. Okay, 0:04:33.360 --> 0:04:37.200 so just a real quick refresher, we've done um volcanoes, 0:04:37.240 --> 0:04:39.680 and I think we've done super volcanoes too, because that 0:04:39.760 --> 0:04:46.559 sounds like us. Yeah, was volcanoes, seventeen super volcanoes. Okay. 0:04:46.640 --> 0:04:48.680 So we talked a lot about how volcanoes work in 0:04:48.760 --> 0:04:50.840 those episodes, So if you want to know a lot 0:04:50.960 --> 0:04:53.520 more in depth, go check those out. But just as 0:04:53.560 --> 0:04:56.880 a refresher for the specific kind of volcano that Mount St. 0:04:56.960 --> 0:05:01.360 Helens is. It's a strato volcano, and it's created when 0:05:01.640 --> 0:05:06.480 one younger plate is subducted under an older plate, and 0:05:06.560 --> 0:05:09.280 as the younger plate goes down into the bowels of 0:05:09.360 --> 0:05:11.960 the Earth, all of the rocket carries with it gets 0:05:12.000 --> 0:05:14.880 heated up. The same with water too, and that stuff 0:05:14.920 --> 0:05:18.240 travels upward because it's less dense than the surrounding mantle 0:05:18.560 --> 0:05:21.440 down below, and as it gets closer and close to 0:05:21.520 --> 0:05:23.840 the crust, it wants to pop out of there, but 0:05:23.960 --> 0:05:26.760 it can't necessarily, sometimes it can, and when it can, 0:05:27.120 --> 0:05:29.680 it just spews out all sorts of molten lava and 0:05:29.839 --> 0:05:32.880 that builds the volcano in a kind of a cone shape, 0:05:33.040 --> 0:05:38.000 which is what Mount Saint Helen's was up until May. Yeah. Um, 0:05:38.120 --> 0:05:41.280 it's a part of the cascade arc arranged there in 0:05:41.320 --> 0:05:45.080 the Pacific Northwest, and all of this happened, and you know, 0:05:45.520 --> 0:05:49.040 geologically speaking, pretty quickly. It happened over the course of 0:05:49.080 --> 0:05:51.599 about forty years in the case of Mountain St. Helens, 0:05:52.160 --> 0:05:55.960 which is pretty speedy. And uh, Ed helped us out 0:05:55.960 --> 0:05:58.240 with this. We did a great job on this article. Um. 0:05:58.320 --> 0:06:00.719 And Ed points out that you know in the Northwest, 0:06:00.800 --> 0:06:03.800 that's why you see so many you know, uh sort 0:06:03.839 --> 0:06:07.159 of coney mountains like that is because of this cascade 0:06:07.279 --> 0:06:10.120 arc and how these mountains were formed, you know, not 0:06:10.360 --> 0:06:13.680 too long ago, right, Yeah, forty thousand years ago, maybe 0:06:13.800 --> 0:06:17.040 less St Helens And I think the whole arc is 0:06:17.320 --> 0:06:20.720 less than a hundred right, um, so the whole thing 0:06:20.800 --> 0:06:25.320 that's driving Mount St. Helens. And apparently also there's some other, um, 0:06:26.160 --> 0:06:29.920 I guess volcanic mountains in the area, like Atoms. I 0:06:29.960 --> 0:06:33.040 think Mount Adams is one as well. But there's a 0:06:33.160 --> 0:06:35.920 there's a magma chamber somewhere under there, I think, um 0:06:36.200 --> 0:06:40.320 possibly miles and miles below the surface. But under normal circumstances, 0:06:40.360 --> 0:06:43.360 like I said, when a Stratto volcanoes formed, the the 0:06:43.680 --> 0:06:45.680 lava just kind of is able to find cracks in 0:06:45.760 --> 0:06:48.640 the crust and like it's it's released through there and 0:06:48.720 --> 0:06:51.440 it builds the mountain up slowly and slowly. But if 0:06:51.480 --> 0:06:53.400 there's not a crack in the crust, as in the 0:06:53.520 --> 0:06:57.760 case where Mount st Helens is um, that magma starts 0:06:57.800 --> 0:06:59.839 to back up. It hits the crust and it starts 0:06:59.839 --> 0:07:02.560 to back up below and all of a sudden you 0:07:02.640 --> 0:07:06.280 have a lot of stuff going on. That um makes 0:07:06.600 --> 0:07:11.160 things go kaboom when the right set of circumstances happens. Yeah, 0:07:11.320 --> 0:07:15.360 this is this is pretty notable. This magma chamber is uh, 0:07:15.640 --> 0:07:19.080 well I is in was quite large and like you said, 0:07:19.120 --> 0:07:21.120 it's it's looking for a place to go. But if 0:07:21.160 --> 0:07:22.840 it doesn't have a place to go, what will happen? 0:07:23.280 --> 0:07:24.640 And as you'll see, this is what happened in the 0:07:24.680 --> 0:07:28.240 case of Mount st Helens is it starts bulging, and 0:07:28.360 --> 0:07:32.000 like the mountain, if you're a geologist, it's super exciting 0:07:32.040 --> 0:07:34.320 to see this happen. Um, even though it's very scary 0:07:34.320 --> 0:07:37.920 and dangerous. But when a geologist sees an actual mountains 0:07:37.960 --> 0:07:41.360 start to bulge out in a direction and we're talking 0:07:41.600 --> 0:07:43.840 you know, hundreds of feet of bulge over the course 0:07:43.880 --> 0:07:47.480 of a pretty short period of time. Then it's pretty like, Uh, 0:07:47.840 --> 0:07:49.880 it's it's a pretty notable thing. And that's exactly what 0:07:50.040 --> 0:07:52.560 was happening in the case of the magma chamber there 0:07:52.600 --> 0:07:56.000 in UH in Washington. Yeah, like this pressure is building 0:07:56.040 --> 0:07:58.800 up so much it's causing a boil on the mountain. 0:07:59.520 --> 0:08:03.400 The mountain grows a goiter basically, and that's just full 0:08:03.480 --> 0:08:05.960 of pressure and magma just waiting to go off. It 0:08:06.040 --> 0:08:09.120 doesn't always go off. And in fact Mount St. Helen's 0:08:09.200 --> 0:08:12.480 had two bulges also called crypto domes, which is pretty 0:08:12.520 --> 0:08:17.600 awesome UM, from previous volcanic eruptions. One was called Goat 0:08:17.720 --> 0:08:20.720 Rocks Bulge UM, and then the other one was called 0:08:20.720 --> 0:08:24.840 the Sugar Bowl bulge, and they just never like the 0:08:25.240 --> 0:08:28.400 magma found its way out other ways, but the bulge 0:08:28.560 --> 0:08:30.600 was left. This is a new bulge, and like you said, 0:08:30.640 --> 0:08:33.079 it was growing I think about six ft a day. 0:08:33.679 --> 0:08:36.920 Every day it kept growing another six ft, which is 0:08:37.200 --> 0:08:40.400 really fast for a mountain to grow. Uh. And that 0:08:40.559 --> 0:08:43.439 was one of the big signs initially that that something 0:08:43.559 --> 0:08:46.000 was going on. And and one more thing before we 0:08:46.040 --> 0:08:49.120 started to get into um Mount St. Helens itself, Chuck, 0:08:49.360 --> 0:08:51.679 I think we need to say like Mount St. Helens 0:08:51.840 --> 0:08:54.640 was big. It was a big eruption, but it was 0:08:55.000 --> 0:08:57.839 not the biggest eruption Mountain St. Helens has ever had. 0:08:58.160 --> 0:09:01.319 Apparently the biggest eruption it's ever came just about four 0:09:01.400 --> 0:09:05.800 thousand years ago, which is within um traditional like folk 0:09:05.920 --> 0:09:09.880 tale memory. Yeah, I mean it had been an active 0:09:09.920 --> 0:09:13.960 volcano for forty thousand years, but the big one before 0:09:14.200 --> 0:09:17.920 nineteen eighty was. Yeah, like you said, four, I was 0:09:17.920 --> 0:09:19.480 trying to look at a specific year, but let's just 0:09:19.520 --> 0:09:22.000 say four thousand years ago, because once you get back 0:09:22.000 --> 0:09:25.920 that far, you know who cares? Who cares? But it became, 0:09:26.080 --> 0:09:29.120 like you said, part of folklore. The indigenous people there, 0:09:30.000 --> 0:09:33.880 especially the pulla Up people, called the mountain LeWitt l 0:09:33.960 --> 0:09:37.400 O O w I T and there was a Lout's 0:09:37.440 --> 0:09:40.800 brewing company, so shout them out. This is one of 0:09:40.880 --> 0:09:45.680 those things where, uh, I thought, I wonder why, because 0:09:45.720 --> 0:09:47.920 there's been such a push to change names of things 0:09:48.600 --> 0:09:51.599 over the past like a decade or so, this is 0:09:51.679 --> 0:09:55.080 one that was. It seems so like sort of egregious 0:09:55.960 --> 0:09:58.520 that we should call it LeWitt and not Mount st. 0:09:58.559 --> 0:10:01.880 Helens that I'm pretty curious. I'm sure there's been pushes 0:10:01.920 --> 0:10:03.680 over the years to get it changed, but the Europeans, 0:10:03.720 --> 0:10:09.640 of course named it Mountain St. Helen's in after Captain 0:10:09.720 --> 0:10:13.120 George Vancouver. If that name rings a bell, it should 0:10:14.120 --> 0:10:16.600 gave the name of it because of a diplomat name, 0:10:16.679 --> 0:10:22.000 Alan fits Herbert didn't call it fits Herbert peak or 0:10:22.000 --> 0:10:25.120 anything like that because his noble title was Baron St. 0:10:25.160 --> 0:10:29.120 Helen's God. But here's the rub is that Allan fitz 0:10:29.160 --> 0:10:33.840 Herbert never even saw Mountain St. Helen's the mountain named 0:10:33.880 --> 0:10:37.280 after him, So like, I don't know, maybe maybe let's 0:10:37.280 --> 0:10:40.280 call this one LeWitt. Yeah, I think that's a great 0:10:40.320 --> 0:10:42.439 idea actually, And the reason they call it lewe It 0:10:42.600 --> 0:10:46.040 that that was she was named after Um, a like 0:10:46.160 --> 0:10:51.160 a famous volcanic fire tender woman, Um and low Itt 0:10:51.360 --> 0:10:53.240 and a couple of other men who fell in love 0:10:53.280 --> 0:10:57.000 with her and fought for her. Um became low it 0:10:57.160 --> 0:10:59.600 became Mount St. Helen's or lou It if you want 0:10:59.600 --> 0:11:02.280 to call it, at and then the other the other 0:11:02.360 --> 0:11:05.319 men who were fighting for became mount Hood and mount Atoms. 0:11:05.640 --> 0:11:08.559 They were smited by the creator God and turned into 0:11:08.640 --> 0:11:12.160 mountains for fighting Um. And there's legends not just from 0:11:12.200 --> 0:11:14.959 the pool up, but other indigenous tribes around the area 0:11:15.440 --> 0:11:18.319 that something really big happened, and it looks like what 0:11:18.480 --> 0:11:20.800 it is is a geo myth, which we've talked about before. 0:11:21.120 --> 0:11:23.400 And I think the Great Floods episode that has been 0:11:23.480 --> 0:11:28.000 handed down generation after generation that describes this enormous eruption 0:11:28.120 --> 0:11:31.920 four thousand years ago pretty good stuff. Yeah, for sure. 0:11:32.200 --> 0:11:33.760 And it was a big eruption too. There's just one 0:11:33.800 --> 0:11:37.120 other thing. There is a layer of tefra of basically 0:11:37.240 --> 0:11:42.600 volcanic ash and debris and stuff that is so thick 0:11:42.679 --> 0:11:45.640 and so wide it goes up into British Columbia and 0:11:46.040 --> 0:11:49.480 sixty two miles away from Mount St. Helen. It's still 0:11:49.720 --> 0:11:53.120 twenty inches thick, almost two ft thick of ash sixty 0:11:53.160 --> 0:11:55.679 two miles away. That's how big that four thousand year 0:11:55.720 --> 0:11:58.920 ago eruption was. That's huge. And all this to say 0:11:59.000 --> 0:12:02.640 that Mount Helen's uh which has an asked, by the way, 0:12:02.720 --> 0:12:06.600 did you know that? Uh? Yeah, I did, you keep saying, Helen. 0:12:06.640 --> 0:12:09.920 I just wondered. I'm I'm being short because I don't 0:12:09.920 --> 0:12:12.200 want to take up too much time talking about Certainly 0:12:14.400 --> 0:12:17.080 that's good. That reminds me of the guy in college 0:12:17.120 --> 0:12:20.079 who fell on the sidewalk and his books splayed out 0:12:20.120 --> 0:12:22.800 and then he acted like he was reading. Yeah, I 0:12:22.960 --> 0:12:25.880 love that story. I forgot about him. Um, all of 0:12:25.960 --> 0:12:27.959 us to say is that Mount St Helen's had been, 0:12:28.360 --> 0:12:30.959 you know, active, had a long history of activity. So 0:12:31.240 --> 0:12:33.960 it's not like anyone ever thought, well, well, that thing 0:12:34.080 --> 0:12:37.199 is done and it's never gonna happen again. No, definitely not. 0:12:37.920 --> 0:12:40.320 Because also in the nineteenth century there was a lot 0:12:40.440 --> 0:12:43.120 of um eruptions too. There's a painting by a Canadian 0:12:43.200 --> 0:12:47.200 artist named Paul Kane who painted in eighteen forty seven eruption. 0:12:47.800 --> 0:12:50.840 So I mean start starting in the nineteenth century. Um, 0:12:50.880 --> 0:12:56.640 Mount St Helen's was documented pretty pretty clearly scientifically too, 0:12:56.760 --> 0:13:00.120 as as being an eruptive volcano, disruptive volcan you know 0:13:00.200 --> 0:13:04.520 you can almost say, all right, shall we take a break. Yeah, 0:13:04.640 --> 0:13:07.080 that's a nice prelude, I think so too. All right, 0:13:07.120 --> 0:13:34.000 we'll be back right after this geo. Okay, So we 0:13:34.040 --> 0:13:36.280 got a nice background on Mount St Helen's that had 0:13:36.320 --> 0:13:39.640 been very active for about or on a off, active 0:13:39.679 --> 0:13:43.800 for forty thousand years, uh, including I believe the last 0:13:44.640 --> 0:13:48.120 sort of big one was in eighteen fifty seven. Um, 0:13:48.480 --> 0:13:50.800 not too long after that, in nineteen o eight, about 0:13:50.840 --> 0:13:54.839 a million acres of land became part of Columbia National Forest, 0:13:54.920 --> 0:13:58.280 which was hence renamed Gifford. Uh a pin shot or 0:13:58.320 --> 0:14:00.199 pin show. I never know how to say that the 0:14:00.360 --> 0:14:03.599 Bronson Pinchot National Forest National forest, and that was in 0:14:03.679 --> 0:14:08.240 nine and Mount St. Helens is inside that National Forest. 0:14:08.920 --> 0:14:10.920 Um all this uh, this sort of a long way 0:14:10.960 --> 0:14:13.880 of saying. It wasn't like super populated. It didn't have 0:14:14.120 --> 0:14:16.800 wasn't surrounded by neighborhoods and suburbs and stuff like that. 0:14:17.960 --> 0:14:20.880 But there was something or is still something called Spirit 0:14:20.960 --> 0:14:23.600 Lake there um near the base of the mountain, which 0:14:23.880 --> 0:14:27.360 is uh, they have like youth camps there. People had 0:14:27.440 --> 0:14:32.560 cabins here and there. There were recreational activities that all 0:14:32.640 --> 0:14:34.600 over the place. So it's not like no one was there, 0:14:34.960 --> 0:14:39.480 but it wasn't heavily populated right well put so, Um, 0:14:39.960 --> 0:14:42.760 the whole thing starts. Actually even before the whole thing started, 0:14:42.840 --> 0:14:46.160 and I saw in nineteen seventy five the two volcanologists 0:14:46.240 --> 0:14:49.920 published a paper UM saying that it was very likely 0:14:50.040 --> 0:14:52.960 Mount St. Helen's was going to erupt in the twentieth 0:14:53.000 --> 0:14:56.400 century at some point, like a big one and five 0:14:56.480 --> 0:14:59.720 years later, in March eighty, the whole thing was kicked 0:14:59.760 --> 0:15:03.240 off by h four point oh earthquake, which is nothing 0:15:03.280 --> 0:15:05.520 to sneeze at, and it was at the mountain. Like 0:15:05.600 --> 0:15:08.320 this earthquake took place at the mountain, and all of 0:15:08.360 --> 0:15:12.280 a sudden, within five days there were quake storms. There 0:15:12.400 --> 0:15:15.720 was twenty four quakes of four point oh or greater 0:15:16.120 --> 0:15:20.400 within eight hours. When a volcano starts doing that and 0:15:20.480 --> 0:15:23.760 you're detecting it, you you, that's when the geologists come 0:15:23.840 --> 0:15:26.640 running from far and wide. Yeah, so they you know, 0:15:26.720 --> 0:15:29.240 the word gets out, and they did come running from 0:15:29.280 --> 0:15:31.240 foreig and wide and they you know, set up camp 0:15:31.320 --> 0:15:36.080 there at various places. Other just sort of um, as 0:15:36.120 --> 0:15:39.800 I learned from watching this uh any special that um 0:15:39.920 --> 0:15:43.680 there are like volcano chasers even that um, they hear 0:15:43.680 --> 0:15:46.120 about this stuff. They're fascinated by it. I guess it's 0:15:46.160 --> 0:15:50.560 just sort of amateur geo enthusiasts. And people started kind 0:15:50.600 --> 0:15:53.000 of coming in there because they got wind that something 0:15:53.080 --> 0:15:56.640 may be brewing at Mount St. Helen's including and this 0:15:56.840 --> 0:15:58.800 is you know, they're all kinds of people we could 0:15:58.840 --> 0:16:01.960 feature story wise, but one gentleman we are going to feature. 0:16:01.960 --> 0:16:04.360 His name was David Johnston UH, and he was a 0:16:05.040 --> 0:16:08.120 volcanologist at the U s g S, the United States 0:16:08.240 --> 0:16:11.880 Geographical Survey, and he was one of the UM. There 0:16:11.920 --> 0:16:13.480 were some great interviews with him in this A and 0:16:13.560 --> 0:16:17.040 E special. He was very young guy, UM, super excited 0:16:17.080 --> 0:16:18.600 to be there, and he was one of the ones 0:16:18.720 --> 0:16:21.760 kind of sounding the alarm along with his partner and 0:16:21.800 --> 0:16:25.720 this guy named Don Swanson about hey, like, you know, 0:16:25.840 --> 0:16:29.280 the s is getting real here everybody, and it looks 0:16:29.320 --> 0:16:32.760 like things like people need to start leaving. Yeah, like 0:16:33.720 --> 0:16:35.600 the thing is is there are the people who did 0:16:35.680 --> 0:16:37.520 live on the mountain were not the kind of folk 0:16:37.600 --> 0:16:41.120 who listened to like, you know, the governmentcil neton college 0:16:41.160 --> 0:16:44.840 boys or the government to be told like leave your home. 0:16:45.440 --> 0:16:48.560 And then also there was um those youth groups that 0:16:48.680 --> 0:16:52.280 were like you're going to ruin our week at Spirit Lake. UM. 0:16:52.400 --> 0:16:57.640 There was also Weyerhauser the first base exactly it's like 0:16:57.720 --> 0:17:00.480 a roller rink over there. UM. And then there was 0:17:00.560 --> 0:17:03.120 Weyerhauser who had a contract to be able to log 0:17:03.600 --> 0:17:06.520 on the on the mountain. They definitely didn't want to 0:17:06.560 --> 0:17:09.040 have to shut down operations. So there's a lot of pressure, 0:17:09.640 --> 0:17:11.879 a surprising amount of pressure, you know, more than you 0:17:11.920 --> 0:17:15.080 would think to keep them outain open, and David Johnston 0:17:15.400 --> 0:17:17.879 and Don Swanson and some of the other colleagues were like, 0:17:18.480 --> 0:17:21.080 you really can't do this, and they managed to convince 0:17:21.200 --> 0:17:23.800 the governor of Washington that it was the right move. 0:17:24.040 --> 0:17:26.840 And then later on, as we'll see, there was even 0:17:26.920 --> 0:17:30.000 more pressure to reopen because things didn't go as fast 0:17:30.080 --> 0:17:33.320 as everyone thought, and they managed to push that back 0:17:33.359 --> 0:17:36.240 as well, and as a result, David Johnston is frequently 0:17:36.320 --> 0:17:40.680 credited for saving thousands of lives potentially, which is pretty cool. 0:17:40.840 --> 0:17:42.600 I mean, and everything I've seen about and he was 0:17:42.680 --> 0:17:47.640 a genuinely great person and also like a really great 0:17:47.760 --> 0:17:51.719 pioneer in volcanology too. Yeah. Absolutely, um yeah. They did 0:17:51.760 --> 0:17:54.320 eventually set up what they called a red zone, and 0:17:54.720 --> 0:17:57.399 a lot of people did evacuate. Uh, there were some 0:17:57.560 --> 0:18:01.200 notable people who didn't. Um. Certainly, we need to mention 0:18:01.280 --> 0:18:05.560 Harry Truman. Um obviously not the president, but he was 0:18:05.680 --> 0:18:09.000 this old kajer who ran the lodge there and he 0:18:09.240 --> 0:18:12.520 became a folk hero because he famously thumbed his nose 0:18:12.720 --> 0:18:15.600 and stayed and said, you know, I'm I'm a part 0:18:15.640 --> 0:18:17.760 of this place. It's a part of me. If the 0:18:17.840 --> 0:18:21.840 mountain goes, I'm gonna go with it. Art Carney played 0:18:21.960 --> 0:18:24.280 him in the movie version. He was He got a 0:18:24.480 --> 0:18:29.240 lot of media attention along with his sixteen cats. Um, 0:18:29.840 --> 0:18:32.840 which is the only part of the story. Like, hey man, 0:18:33.359 --> 0:18:35.760 I'm I'm all for people evacuating and keep people safe, 0:18:35.800 --> 0:18:40.280 but I'm also like some old old mountain man wants 0:18:40.320 --> 0:18:42.480 to stay up there and go go down with a volcano. 0:18:42.640 --> 0:18:46.440 Like that's his right, but send the cats away. Don't 0:18:46.520 --> 0:18:49.520 say like I'm gonna go down and kill these sixteen 0:18:49.560 --> 0:18:52.240 cats at the same time. Yeah, it's kind of like 0:18:52.359 --> 0:18:55.280 being buried in like you know, medieval times and having 0:18:55.359 --> 0:18:57.600 your live horse buried with you. Yeah. I just I 0:18:57.640 --> 0:18:59.359 don't know. Man. Once I heard about the cats, because 0:18:59.400 --> 0:19:01.359 I was all into the sky, right, and then I 0:19:01.440 --> 0:19:03.280 heard about the cat I was like, oh, dude, you 0:19:03.280 --> 0:19:06.240 should have at least set the cats away. Yeah, no way, 0:19:06.440 --> 0:19:16.040 not not a lodge cajure. So um, Harry Truman will 0:19:16.080 --> 0:19:18.280 come back in. This is Harry Ard Truman, by the way, 0:19:18.320 --> 0:19:21.960 everybody said his middle initial to differentiate him. He'll come 0:19:21.960 --> 0:19:24.800 back in later. But so this mark the last thing 0:19:24.840 --> 0:19:28.600 that we happened on the mountain. March in eight hours, 0:19:28.680 --> 0:19:32.399 there's twenty four four point or greater magnitude earthquakes, and 0:19:32.520 --> 0:19:35.760 that brought everybody running. Um. This whole thing was so 0:19:36.000 --> 0:19:39.520 perfectly planned that on the day of the eruption there 0:19:39.680 --> 0:19:44.440 was the mineral and gem show in Yakima, like I think, 0:19:44.560 --> 0:19:46.960 less than a hundred miles away from Mount St. Helen's, 0:19:47.200 --> 0:19:49.560 So anybody who has any had anything to do with 0:19:49.720 --> 0:19:53.080 geology just happened to be in the area or was 0:19:53.200 --> 0:19:57.520 purposefully in the area. And then on March that's just 0:19:57.600 --> 0:20:02.200 getting more and more and more. There was an actual eruption, right, yeah, 0:20:02.320 --> 0:20:05.080 So this was I mean, compared to what eventually ended 0:20:05.119 --> 0:20:07.840 up happening, you could call this sort of many eruption. 0:20:08.680 --> 0:20:12.280 Even though it sent it made a big boom. Apparently 0:20:12.320 --> 0:20:15.080 it was a pretty cloudy day so it wasn't super visible, 0:20:15.160 --> 0:20:19.080 but the ash column went up sixty feet into the air, 0:20:19.680 --> 0:20:22.600 it's nothing to sneeze, and a new crater formed at 0:20:22.640 --> 0:20:25.960 the summit, which grew to about six hundred feet wide, 0:20:26.960 --> 0:20:29.399 so it was a major thing. There was another one 0:20:29.440 --> 0:20:34.080 on again throwing ash into the air, and this is 0:20:34.160 --> 0:20:37.920 like basically from that point through the big one in 0:20:38.080 --> 0:20:46.159 mid May, it was just constant uh warning, constant upheaval, mudslides, avalanches, 0:20:46.720 --> 0:20:50.400 craters growing, and like the mountain is saying like it's 0:20:50.440 --> 0:20:54.080 gonna happen people. This is not a false alarm until 0:20:54.240 --> 0:20:57.520 things calmed down, and that's what you were talking about earlier, 0:20:57.560 --> 0:21:00.680 Like things kind of settled down on what was that 0:21:00.840 --> 0:21:06.800 like May around around may to where the people got 0:21:06.840 --> 0:21:09.239 Auntie that were evacuated and said, hey, listen, we want 0:21:09.280 --> 0:21:11.639 to go back and check on our stuff. And the 0:21:11.720 --> 0:21:14.000 governor eventually was like, all right, I think it, you 0:21:14.080 --> 0:21:15.800 know at the time, and I think Washington still is 0:21:15.880 --> 0:21:18.639 a little bit of one of those like uh, not 0:21:18.800 --> 0:21:21.800 quite live free or die, but you know, like all right, listen, 0:21:21.840 --> 0:21:23.480 these people pay taxes, they want to go back to 0:21:23.520 --> 0:21:27.040 their homes, sign a waiver that you're not gonna sue us, 0:21:27.560 --> 0:21:29.720 and let him go back there. And that's what they did. 0:21:30.320 --> 0:21:34.000 They did. There's footage of them signing um waivers on 0:21:34.080 --> 0:21:36.760 the hood of a car with some obvious state lawyer 0:21:36.800 --> 0:21:39.320 in a three piece suit of canning people a pen 0:21:39.920 --> 0:21:43.280 being like signed here. It's really hilarious, but um they did. 0:21:43.359 --> 0:21:46.119 They started some people started to trickle in um and 0:21:46.240 --> 0:21:50.040 that's actually why there were you know, I think, and 0:21:50.240 --> 0:21:54.480 we ended up with fifty seven casualties. Seven people died, 0:21:55.400 --> 0:21:58.200 and that was one reason why it was actually that high. 0:21:58.400 --> 0:22:00.720 Could have could have been less, but bowl were allowed 0:22:00.720 --> 0:22:03.600 to trickle back in. They still kept like a perimeter, 0:22:04.080 --> 0:22:07.280 but I think it was kind of porous. If you 0:22:07.400 --> 0:22:09.520 wanted to get through, you could get through. And there 0:22:09.560 --> 0:22:13.200 are stories in that minute by minute episode of People. 0:22:13.359 --> 0:22:17.080 There's this one backpacker who is probably hilarious at parties 0:22:17.080 --> 0:22:19.680 because he makes like a funny a funny voice for 0:22:19.760 --> 0:22:22.400 the police when the police is talking, when he's recreating 0:22:22.400 --> 0:22:26.159 a conversation. Um, he's he's stuck through with friends. There 0:22:26.160 --> 0:22:27.960 are a lot of people on the mountain that otherwise 0:22:28.040 --> 0:22:30.480 might not have been had they kept it closed. But 0:22:30.560 --> 0:22:32.520 they did open it up a little bit, and it 0:22:32.680 --> 0:22:35.159 was because nothing had happened for a little while, and 0:22:35.200 --> 0:22:39.080 then about three days later everything happened. You said, you 0:22:39.160 --> 0:22:41.560 said S was getting real. This is when the S 0:22:41.680 --> 0:22:46.240