Hard to believe, another frosty day in WA.. 48 degrees up at Johnston Ridge
Having "only" happened 30 years ago and remember watching it on TV this is incredible to see first hand. The observatory is 5 miles from the crater and even though we had low clouds you can see the bottom of the crater. This was the "blast zone" side where 1500 feet of elevation disappeared when it blew out this side.. The days leading up to the main eruption was interesting where people we told to leave their homes then they pressured authorities to go back and get their stuff because nothing was happening. They made the first round and not the second trips to their homes... Harry R. Truman was the guy that lived on Spirit Lake and refused to leave and perished with the blast. They said in the days before the main eruption the side of the mountain was "bulging" about 4-7 feet a day. 57 people died in the blast. Its worth looking up the story on the net and watching the time lapsed video leading up to it.
Trees in the blast zone were "shattered". It was amazing to see 6 foot thick tree stumps ripped apart like this. The power of this was incredible. It's scary and amazing to think about.
30 years earlier this was a forest, today it looks like we are in mountain desert... If you enlarge the picture you can see a small part of Sprit Lake in the center. Mt St Helens is to the right. The land slide that was the mountain went from right to left OVER that ridge you see.
As far as you can see it looks like this until you get further out of the blast zone Weyerhauser Company planted new trees about six months later. The entire landscape was just blown down trees for miles and Weyhauser came in to salvage them as fast as they could. They said an average of 600 truck loads came out a day and 1000 loggers were hired to complete the salvage.
No comments:
Post a Comment