My mom, dad and two brothers were at the top of White Pass when this happened. My mother comnented that it wasn't very cold to be snowing. My youngest brother, who had taken Geology in college rolled down his window and reached out his hand and stated "This is not snow, this is ash! The mountain blew!" They were coming back from Yakima Washington where they had attended a conference for my dad's business. They pulled over an my mother wrote "May 18 1980" on a picnic table. The ash was already six inches deep. They turned around and went back to the motel, getting the last room. My older brother got sick with his asma while they waited things to clear up for the next three days. They were finally able to leave and go home to Seattle. My husband, at the time, was stranded at Fairchild AFB. We lived on Beale AFB in California at the time. He brought back 10 pounds of the ash. They were selling it in California for $10.00 a tiney vial. We didn't sell it. I kept some in a baby food jar. It was quite a time for Washington. My grandmother vacuumed ash out of her carpets for several years. She lived in Centrailia Washington. That year, she had a fantastic garden!! My Aunt lived in Maple Valley Washington. She made pottery. Each time the mountain would shoot out new ash, she would gather it and fire it on to a sample disk, labelling it with the day and month. She also gathered as much of it as she could and made pottery out of it.

I remember watching this documentary when I was a kid. I even remember the music. Wow. Thank you for posting this!

I was 5 years old and living in St Helens, Oregon. I remember the snow plow trucks moving ash from the roads.

I was in Yakima Washington, had 4 to 6 inches of ash fell around 10 am. Day turned into the night for up to 3 days; such a weird experience had to stay at home.

@PedroConejo1939

4 жыл бұрын

Yeah, my parents were driving back home to Bellevue from Spokane, past Yakima on the I-90 and were ordered to spend the night in a nearby home. They talked about it being pitch black at midday. A year later, we were flying by the mountain in a Cessna and it still looked scary.

I was in grade school when this happened. And remember it very well.we would collect the ashes from our yard, it was snow. Sky was so dark with ash falling. Yep I remember.

@MissAshley-jq9gl

4 жыл бұрын

Shelley Holloway I'm in Oregon also I recently bought some of the Ash on eBay for the 40 anniversary my mom lived in Hillsboro in 1980 and said It was falling like crazy.

@ashqelon7267

4 жыл бұрын

@@MissAshley-jq9gl go up the I5 to Lewis and Clark river exit, there is still a billion TONS of it , in mounds there!!!

@MissAshley-jq9gl

4 жыл бұрын

@@ashqelon7267 thank you for the idea i spent 10 on a tiny bottle it would be nice to get some free.

@ashqelon7267

4 жыл бұрын

@@MissAshley-jq9gl Yes those mountains that are up by the river , hundreds of feet long and wide and 75 ft tall with a lot of huge trees on them. Just bring you a little shovel in a baggie..

@stephss

4 жыл бұрын

Feels like a life time ago, eh? I was 9, and it was pretty remarkable.

I was almost 5 when this happened, I remember so many things now after watching this. It was truly a weird time. I remember helping my brother wash the car and the drive way was so slick we kept sliding down. Until we complained enough Dad (RIP) saw what was happening, he started laughing and told us to come in and he finished it. LOL good times.

@southwestxnorthwest

4 жыл бұрын

You were born in 1976? I was 4 years old, I vaguely remember it happening

@triple9fine

4 жыл бұрын

I was born in 1975. I remember.

I was 10 years old, and living in Missoula, MT at the time. It’s cool that this documentary mentioned us. I remember it so well! My aunt’s & uncles, and my Great-grandma, lived in Spokane, and called us to let us know they were OK, but it was dark as night in the middle of the day.

I used to think Harry was being an idiot when I first heard the story, but he was staying where he loved to be. He would not have been happy leaving. And it's highly unlikely he suffered much. Yes, he was a character, but a character that should be remembered and honoured. The more I got to know Harry from these news reports, the more I respect and even love him. If he wanted to stay on the mountain, leave him alone. There is no better way to die than doing what you love.

@KathrynsWorldWildfireTracking

2 жыл бұрын

Tragically, Harry changed his mind about the mountain's danger. There's a rare interview that Lars Larson did with him, at the lodge. He said the earthquakes were now scaring him, but he didn't want to be remembered as a disappointment to his fans, and a coward who finally fled. So he stayed. :( If only he got on the copter, and left with Lars...

@jefffinkbonner9551

5 ай бұрын

@@KathrynsWorldWildfireTracking No one would mu b care about Harry Truman if he had. Instead, he’s a legend

@Ghostshadows306

2 күн бұрын

You should have stuck with your first impression that he was an idiot. Because that’s what we call people who talk big like they know something who literally end up dead wrong and are vaporized. But if you and others want to call him a hero that’s great, who am I to tell anyone who they should idolize. But don’t tell the rest of us he should be considered a hero because I don’t call people who are stupid stubborn or suicidal hero’s. Thats just me though.

Some of this footage is on a video series called “US logger” Thank you for posting and sharing, i can remember i was i fifth grade in NJ, and can remember the haze!

21:56...Truman waving, fade to reality crumbling music in psychotic backdrop effect of Clockwork Orange Synth...NICE! Many of those Helicopter pilots who flew those rescue missions up on Saint Helens in 1980 were Veteran’s of Vietnam.

@AwesomeAngryBiker

4 ай бұрын

music is Jean Michael Jarr

That was the shiz' guys. TY for sharing this! :) I was 4 when it went off, and coming home from Winchell's Doughnuts here on Fourth Plain and Grand Blvd., in Vancouver just over the hill from where I'm at now. Way cool stuff - thank you. :)

Okay look I love the documentary. But I woke up to a picture of Mount Saint Helens erupting. Scared the living hell outta me

@RonJohn63

4 жыл бұрын

Unless you live in the vicinity, why in the world would a Mount St. Helens scare the living hell out of you?

@RonJohn63

4 жыл бұрын

@MG Stevens to me, it suggests that he wakes up and immediately open YT... :D

Where would I be without KZread Aspect Ratio Control? A plugin for Chrome that lets you adjust the width of videos. The vast, vast majority of 4:3 videos uploaded to KZread are mistakenly presented as 16:9, including this Mount St. Helens video. You can watch it in its correct, intended aspect ratio by using the setting "75% H" in the plugin.

My husband lived in Longview when this happened. He was 13 and he said the blast literally knocked him on his butt. He said it rained ash for days. He told me about how the Cowlitz river used to be clear with a rocky bottom before the eruption. Now it's a muddy mircky ash bottom that became un swimmable. There are still signs of the eruption all over even all these years later. I find it all absolutely fascinating.

My 4 year old was completely engrossed by this documentary.

I was camping with a group of friends, on the south side of My Hood. This was before cell phones, so When we woke up the that morning and saw the plume cloud, we thought an atomic bomb had been drop on Portland! Well there might have been some drinking going on. Still, It was unbelievable! We were assured this could never happen!

I do not believe Harry Truman had a false sense of security. He made it very clear, he was 84 years old, that place was his only home. If that beautiful place died he wanted to die with it. He made an honorable choice.

@stephss

4 жыл бұрын

Is there honour in being stubborn and selfish? He didn't value his life, like those kids who begged him to leave. This event must have been terrifying, not romantic.

@umadbra

4 жыл бұрын

I agree, if someone wants to die... Let him... This is America... We have the freedom to die!

@Stacie45

4 жыл бұрын

@@stephss Where is the honor in dying in pain and misery in a nursing home a short time later? Have you had the experience of watching your parents die? To go out quickly and painlessly in the place that brings you joy, when you only have a short time left anyway, I cannot think of a better way to go. We should all be so lucky.

@Stacie45

4 жыл бұрын

@@umadbra I believe in freedom but I would parse your comment. For a young person with acute clinical depression who is suicidal they need help, not the choice to end their life. I have had a friend commit suicide at age 29. This is different. Harry was 84, he lived a great life and he knew he didn't have much time left no matter what. He was in fact old and wise, knew what he wanted.

@Stacie45

4 жыл бұрын

@Mike Studmuffin My 87 year old Father yelled in pain for a few hours as I held his hand before the morphine finally took hold and he went to sleep for the last time. His last words were "I can't do this anymore." My Old Man endured 6 months of hell before he finally passed away. When I have to go out I would rather go the way Harry did.

That Chinook that Carter flew in was loud as fuck. I've flown in Chinook helicopters and you absolutely need hearing protection in them

The ashes made it over the Rocky Mountains and covered the Canadian prairies. The ash is glass.... don't inhale that! Now I'm off to see videos of what it looks like now.

People heard the bang of the eruption here in my hometown of Nelson BC (which is 8 hrs east of Vancouver about 5 hrs away from the Alberta boarder) my Grandma and Grandpa were on our local lake in their boat when they heard the blast, my grandpa said it was probably miners blasting but my Grandma knew it couldn't have been because it was a Sunday and no mining company operated on Sunday... A few hours later it started snowing... Snowing ash They later found out it was obviously mt st Helens

I had to move to Oregon in 1980 about one month after the initial main eruption. There was a smaller one that blanketed Portland and areas to the southwest I believe in July...I was watching a political convention on an old black and white tv and there was dust everywhere outside. To read history is one thing to live it is exciting!

My parents were lying in bed that morning, in vancouver bc, canada. They told me they felt the shake and the headboard was rattling.

I love all things 80s. I was five when Helens went up. Can anyone tell me how loud the explosion was when the volcano erupted? I've never heard anyone talk about how loud the initial explosion was, only the power.

@gustavopacheco919

4 жыл бұрын

@J P thank you.

@swirvinbirds1971

4 жыл бұрын

The sound traveled over 200 miles from the mountain.

@stephss

4 жыл бұрын

Did you watch it? They do discuss the sound of the explosion.

@robertmalcolm8435

4 жыл бұрын

I was sleeping in a semi at the I-5 Mt St.Helen view point at Vancouver Wash.when it blew it made the truck jump up and a boom and I got out wondering what the hell happened, there is a video of my particular view of the volcano and remember looking at the person filming it, when I see that particular video its exactly what I saw.

@gustavopacheco919

4 жыл бұрын

@@swirvinbirds1971 How is it that the people who were closest to the mountain that got footage with their cameras are not deaf? I have heard the 200 miles before, really cool stuff.

I was just a kid and I remember going outside and it was a nice sunny day, went to the front yard and there was this gigantic cloud. People from all over the neighborhood were put looking. As a kid with a vivid imagination, it was incredible to see. No one thought about ash. But hours later it was dark and ash was everywhere. Crazy. I was living in steilacoom, wa. About 100 or so miles north of it. Never forget

We had just arrived in Penticton BC and it was covered in ash and someone had put a box of soap in the town fountain and there were long foamy streamers for like 50 feet around it. It was F`n awesome lmao! shitty overcast summer tho

18:40 yay the doggy was alright

The day after I turned 6 years old I watched this thing blow up from my Grandma's back porch most insane thing I've ever seen in my life naturewise

Incredible how much of that mountain was lost due to the eruption. Were talking about rock too.

I'm curious on what Harry Truman's property looked like after the eruption and did they ever find his body? He is probably the main character of this short film, yet all we know is that he died.

@charlesgrant9900

4 жыл бұрын

Why did I even ask the question instead of looking it up for myself? Wikipedia states that Truman is presumed to have been killed by a pyroclastic flow that overtook his lodge and buried the site under 150 ft of volcanic debris.

@fairwitness7473

4 жыл бұрын

@@charlesgrant9900 I wonder what future archaeologists will think when they find him...

@mopimpn

4 жыл бұрын

@fair Hope it's not him licking those chapped lips of his 21:34 😛

@marked4death076

4 жыл бұрын

@@charlesgrant9900 ive heard thousand feet buried under possibly, i think he was close enough to where the landslide killed him before the blas got him, but shit that would probably be worse, burried in mud

@cumexpender9660

3 жыл бұрын

kzread.info/dash/bejne/n5lp27WBes6uldY.html

That music you hear at the beginning and end of the documentary is Jean Michel Jarre with "Oxygene (Part 1)" from the album Oxygene (1976). Anyways, in 1980 I was living in Eugene during the eruption. My parents bought masks just to be on the safe side, but thankfully the ash never went to Eugene and the skies were rather clear there.

@moreld1

Ай бұрын

Nice catch! I used to listen to Jarre in the 80s, had a buddy who was really into him.

Wow, so close to the story of "Dante's Peak"! thanks for posting. I was in Ca. at the time of this eruption and we noticed her violence in S. Ca. very easily! If Yosemite goes, we are DONE! Pleasant dreams kids!

@mikefromuniontown3809

4 жыл бұрын

When the main hatchway, YOSEMITE, "gives in" it shall be "FELLOWS it been good to know ya"!

@heavenstomurgatroyd7033

4 жыл бұрын

Uh...Yosemite is a glacier carved valley there are no active or extinct volcanoes there.

@lilredwagon5311

4 жыл бұрын

@@heavenstomurgatroyd7033 do you think they mean Yellowstone?

@lilredwagon5311

4 жыл бұрын

@@heavenstomurgatroyd7033 oh by the way...exit stage left!

I was at the Cle Elm ranger station when the call came out.We heard the young man die.We were 75 miles from the blast.It got darker than midnight,with the a thick darkness that Clomp falling like snow.It was picking flowers from the devil garden!I shall never forget.

Nice to see and hear an intelligent, compassionate President!

@00buck80

4 жыл бұрын

No doubt I was thinking the same thing

@boomerangsruckflug8513

4 жыл бұрын

You name it...

@heavenstomurgatroyd7033

4 жыл бұрын

Then why didn't you re-elect him?

@GrahameGould

3 жыл бұрын

Intelligent? Not at being President. And his policies were not compassionate either. They were pathetic.

@coreym162

4 ай бұрын

Not by any means a good president and no, he didn't sound intelligent at all. I laughed when he said there was a "flash" that burned everything. I think he was too busy projecting his "knowledge" of nuclear energy where it didn't belong...

Interesting/informative/entertaining.

I think the helicopter ride up to the crater would be the scariest part of the trip, what with the winds that must blow around the mountain.

music credit?

I witnessed ash falling (very thinly) in Delaware.

Was not expecting to hear Falconhoof's theme.

I wish somebody would locate & place a flag over Harry's Lodge so we can get some perspective what exactly happened with that landslide...is that asking for too much???

@marked4death076

4 жыл бұрын

Always thought about that too, i mean hes like thousand feet underground but still could do something like what they did for johnston, i think they say its unsafe down there still with vents and stuff

@richardnailhistorical3445

4 жыл бұрын

@@marked4death076 Not a thousand feet, maybe 200 feet based on what I have heard from experts. This misconception is exact reason I would like to see an identifier with some statistics. Another thing that should be done is show us where Spirit Lake was originally, the lake was moved substantially. These kind of identifiers help to understand what exactly happened. I'm fairly sure they know all this information w/o a lot ot reserach.

@cumexpender9660

3 жыл бұрын

They did show a video of his sister dropping a wreath at the spot where his lodge once stood, its unrecognizable

@chocolatetownforever7537

Жыл бұрын

The description of it looking like the lunar surface after this happened is a very good one. Incredible, and while its coming back more and more every year, there are still a lot of areas where you can see something major had happened there, even though its been forty years.

@coreym162

4 ай бұрын

There's probably nothing left or he was scattered among the cabins in the area, pulverized by trees, hotel debris, boiled and dissolved in the lake and what was left was cooked and crushed under tons of hot ash. He is literally one with the lake. The whole lake is his resting spot. I hope there's a plaque or a marker for him there. Anywhere will do.

Willing to bet you won't see much social distancing up there tomorrow haha

@highstandards6226

4 жыл бұрын

Won't take that bet! * never * bet against a sure thing.😎🤷‍♀️😁

CNN Started 2 weeks after the eruption of Mt St Helens.

@philippeflores6672

4 жыл бұрын

CNN will celebrate 40 years since June 1, 1980.

@dwizzleusa4202

4 жыл бұрын

CNN Should be ashamed of what their reporting has become!! CNN keeps digging itself in a deeper hole with misreporting information on about every issue!

@hokie6384

4 ай бұрын

Two catastrophes almost back to back 🤔

I’m 66. I was thirty six with three young children. Who now are my age when St Helens blew.

I remember oregons skies had ash like sunsets from st. Helens

I watched a documentary about it on Disney plus

Once the mud hit that old man’s house he was like “are you still offering those police escorts?.... ummm... hello?... HELLLOOOOOOO???????????”

The ash clouds were very similar to the dust storms in the plains states during the Great Depression. Probably worse because ash is worse than dust in many ways. It was TERRIBLE!!

And to think that Yellowstone is gonna make mount saint Helen's look like one of those gorilla snaps when she goes off...MSH ash cloud barely made it to the black hills but Yellowstones ash cloud with cover the world for at least 20 years

If this were to have happened in 2020, would they have forced Harry Truman to evacuate? (I think so, unfortunately)

@boomerangsruckflug8513

4 жыл бұрын

But please add the question that Harry probably would have been happy to survive.

@chocolatetownforever7537

Жыл бұрын

I still dont understand why Johnston and Martin were allowed to be so close. While I realize most didnt think it would be as big of an eruption as it was, or that it would blow horizontally, they did see a bulge growing on the side, and were unecessarily too close to the mountain considering its dangers. There were remote cameras, telescopes, and other means of observing that were safer, and you ALWAYS should overestimate mother nature, not the opposite.

Well Harry is now swimming in lava lakes.

did they just call him crusty lol 21:00

All I hear in the first minutes is Jean Michel Jarre's Oxygene 1.

Oh, no ... please say it ain't so. Just kidding. 🙂

What they had to wear masks! Man their rights are being taken away! 😂

@sturvinmurvin9408

4 жыл бұрын

...........CFS.

@boomerangsruckflug8513

4 жыл бұрын

😂😂😂

IF YOU LOVE COMMERCIALS EVERY FIVE MINUTES THIS VIDEO IS FOR YOU

If he was happy for this choice, then I am happy for him. Except, it may set a bad example to others; to disrespect authorities is not always wise. People do imitate others without thinking or realizing it. May he rest in peace.🌿

Harry was vaporized.

50 MINUTE COMMERCIALS WTF

Worried about earthquake watch dutchsinse he can predict them take care

Harry Truman. The future of American science deniers. Yippie.

@boomerangsruckflug8513

4 жыл бұрын

Even the dog was smarter...

@user-pu2cj3no5f

3 күн бұрын

The mountain gave Harry hell.

whatever

I hope Harry Truman was looking out his window and saw the pyroclastic flow coming towards him and he 💩 himself.