Usually, when reporters say "the calm before the storm," they're being over dramatic, but old Stan was bang on...

@zabijca

Күн бұрын

Vitness claim that something what appears to be alleged volcano eruption...

The "tilting to the north" part is chilling, as that's the cardinal direction in which she blew.

News reporters were bad asses back then

I was a student at Portland State University at the time. KOIN TV of Portland flew my professor to the lip of the volcano. Then he walked down to the lake you see in this video and got water samples and then flew back to Portland. His name was Dr. Leaonard Palmer. After we examined his various samples in class he said the mountain is going to blow its top. He was right.

@toomignon

4 күн бұрын

Well, technically it blue it's north face. 😅

Can’t imagine standing on that volcano knowing it could erupt at any moment….hope pilot and reporter got hazard pay for that story.

@smith9808

8 күн бұрын

Yeah they did. $3.50

@KiloMike80

6 күн бұрын

But meals, per diem and lodging were not provided.

@xr6lad

3 күн бұрын

Looks like he got a dashing cable knit sweater and a David Hasslehof hair cut as his compo.

That right there is proper news reporting, getting the world a view up front at tremendous risk, fantastic work.

Now this is journalism

The media's hyperbole about the "mountain exploding" are chillingly ironic in retrospect.

Back when reporting was real. This was an amazing video.

Really impressed with both the reporting AND the quality of the footage - first rate👍👏.

My dad traversed to the peak within the month leading up to the quakes and the crater while St Helens was still white capped.

@animalmother1582

2 күн бұрын

My uncle was an airline pilot. He flew over the St Helens area before the eruption, and not long after. He said the same thing everyone who saw it said, "it looked like the moon".

Dude, this is insane. I wasn't aware that a helicopter landed on the old crater rim, mere days before the eruption! This is stunning footage.

This is what I call real journalism! ❤ Thrilling, facts available, experts on the spot. Nowadays, journalists run to the airport if an airplane makes a go-around.

Folks. that's a Real News Reporter. Did what he had to do to get the story.

I was working in Peru at the time. Mail was very slow and when the eruption began I knew nothing about it. My parents lived east of Salem, Oregon at the time. One of my coworkers was from Portland and his parents sent him the newspapers at the time. They arrived where we were 2 months after the initial eruption, as did letters from my parents telling of ashfalls on the house. I finished my work in Peru in October and went home. The eruption was still going on and I got a sample of ash off the hood of the car a few days after I got there. It was really interesting, although I was only there for a couple of months.

When news reports were factual, before dramatic sensationalism and outright lies for ratings became the norm around 20 years later.

@Retroearthling

2 күн бұрын

no the real lying left office 3 years ago and GOD FORBID will never come back. The biggest LIAR on the planet BAR NONE.

Days later..... May 18, 8:32am, lateral blast flattened 200 square miles of forest.

@princeedmirovillar8044

2 күн бұрын

And still the scorched forest still hasn't recovered to this day

@larryweinberg1191

2 күн бұрын

@@princeedmirovillar8044 planted trees in blast zone in 1981. Feds were worried about seedling survival. Long story short the volcanic based soils made everything grow quite well. Sure much of the old growth trees that were flattened are hard to replace, but trees and vegetation grew fast enough to allow elk hunting in blast area 12 years after the eruption. It has recovered.

Those guys were standing on a place that no longer exists, damn

@animalmother1582

2 күн бұрын

It still exists. Just in grains several miles to the north.

@Uomo_Universale

2 күн бұрын

Some of it is ash that fell several states over.

Me and two friends had the weekend off. We were going to go camping at Mt. St. Helen but decided it would be better to just go to the 3 Sisters instead, so we could be back at our jobs in time on Monday. We woke up on Sunday and was in the process of frying up some bacon in a pan when I heard the most sorrowful moaning I've ever heard in my life. It was deep, and loud. It sounded just like the whole earth was in the process of dying. It was Mt. St. Helen exploding over a hundred and forty miles away.

@FPInvention

Күн бұрын

Wow what a sound, the power

@okaygecko

8 сағат бұрын

Actually quite the opposite innit, it's creating more earth. A climax of enormous forces

Oh my goodness... this is the first time to see this, are any of these people still alive? How do the feel today about this?

@nahalastone8027

Ай бұрын

57 people were killed and it's amazing it wasn't more because of the foot dragging and idiocy of the people who were more interested in tourism than safety. Scientists were practically screaming the mountain was going to blow right up to weeks before it actually happened. Thank goodness they finally closed the mountain down or more people would've been killed. I still remember my mom yelling at us to get in the house that day. We live 300ish miles away and still got covered in ash. Years later we visited the park and it's something you can't unsee. Just a barren wasteland, trees laid over like toothpicks.

@KhanMann66

11 күн бұрын

44 years since the mountain blew up and the scars are still there.

@xr6lad

3 күн бұрын

Stan Wilson is no longer a reporter. Still alive. In real estate in California.

Thank you for posting this!

RIP David Johnston and Harry Truman.

Tom Benson passed in 2011, but was interviewed quite a bit by KATU after the eruption occurred. Stan Wilson has been running a family investment firm out of Palm Desert for nearly 28 years. Guess his time chasing volcanoes was done with Mt. St. Helens

Great footage. Thank you for sharing.

It takes major balls to stand on top of a volcano knowing damn well it could go off at any time.

@George-xb5ey

Күн бұрын

it's insane

Awesome report!

Fantastic journalism!👍

Volcanic ash is very good for plant growth when added to soil.

@JH-kd6hs

4 сағат бұрын

Just not when it’s 20ft deep

I wouldn’t have landed that chopper on that surface. But what a cool report. They last guys to stand on the mountain before it blew.

I remember being an 11 year old kid in 1980, watching the ashes fall into my hand at school that day...

Whoever was piloting that helicopter looked remarkably like Sean Penn, and the reporter in red was quite cute! That said, if you have the chance to go to Mt. St. Helen’s now to see the view and the short film on the explosion, by all means do. And be sure to stay until beyond the end of the film!

I was born the 18th of May of 1980.

@falconeshield

7 күн бұрын

Happy 44 years and beyond man

@Reaper-vv4qw

20 сағат бұрын

My 6th birthday!

"It's worth it". I mean, he said it.

Word was they went back 17 days later for an update but never published the report..!🤔🤔🤔

How many times until the eruption...they land on the top...??? Awesome!!!

If you see the terrifying footage how Mt. St. Helens collapsed, these guys were at high risk at any second of this footage. If she collapsed with them still on it, nobody would have ever found them. This footage is a once in a lifetime lucky shot of a place that doesn't exist anymore like you see it here.

i heard about how people didn't believe anything was going to happen, if more people saw it moving that much i wonder if they would've thought otherwise?

They knew something big was happening, but that still didn’t prevent the loss of life….

Wow, never saw this, pretty gutsy. And he's dressed pretty much for a holiday party at work.

There was a bulge north side of the mountain ominous and they predicted kind of its erupting danger those reporters were in on that volcanoes rim

Wow so prophetic

Well Done ,my Lads!!!

I went for a hike up Mount Aetna years ago. During my hike, several men in military vehicles asked if I wanted a ride down. I figured that they just wanted to make a buck off of me. I declined. I also noticed that there were no other footprints on the mountain, and the soil was like walking on black sugar. I later learned that an eruption was imminent and everyone was order to evacuate. I hiked all the way up and down. An eruption occurred days later.

Crazy!!

this ain't some fake news

Little did they know!

News reporter stands on the edge of a volcano that is about to erupt at any moment, wearing dress slacks and Gilligans sweater, now THAT is bad ass!

@whiteknightcat

5 күн бұрын

Um ... Gilligan wore a red long-sleeved button-collared pullover with an integral white collar. The reporter wore a simple red pullover sweater over a white shirt.

"... Stan Wilson reporting channel 2 news..." Okay CUT. "Now get me the heck off this f***ing rock before it f***ing explodes with me on it!"

One giant landslide toward Spirit Lake.... It's amazing how much they could see coming. Even the lateral blast was suspected in such an event. If the landslide exposed the magma chamber.

That massive landslide you see in the videos was caused by the weight of the reporters balls.

@johanssonb

6 күн бұрын

😂😂😂 It's absolutely hilarious to imagine that as the real cause.

Award worthy

If they had only known...

This year was the 44th anniversary of the eruption of Mt St Hellens. Rest in peace to all those who where killed when it errupted.

Yes, we knew she was gonna blow. I got to experience the ash in Montana.

Brave indeed. They got lucky, others who found themselves in the wrong place at the wrong time weren’t so lucky.

"For all of that, it's worth it." It was worth it, only because he wasn't standing there when it went boom! I wonder about the geologist who was with the reporter in this video. He might have been one of the people who was too close to the volcano when it finally did erupt.

@markbarta2369

Жыл бұрын

He wasn't, some quick google research found his obituary dated January 24, 2011. He was 81 years old.

Kinda surreal that the place he’s standing now doesn’t exist anymore

Crazy.

Could have blown up right there with them on it. Where are these people now?

He shoulda worn a wind proof jacket, he looked cold.

I can't believe they got Richard Hatch from Battlestar Galactica to do that daredevil scene.

@e.a.r.9155

10 ай бұрын

Nailed It. 😂

@ChimpFromSpace

5 күн бұрын

Don't forget the smash hit scifi movie "Prisoners of the Lost Universe"!

@gmw3083

5 күн бұрын

@@ChimpFromSpace I'd never heard of that. Watched the trailer. Way crazier than Battlestar. Was it really a hit?

it would have been interesting and horrifying to see st.helen explode right then and there right on live tv.

@AndrewP-fj8rn

8 күн бұрын

It wasn't live. It was recorded then aired later.

Good for Stan Wilson , from Channel 1 news.

@AndrewP-fj8rn

8 күн бұрын

Channel 2

@spiwolf6998

8 күн бұрын

@@AndrewP-fj8rn Oops! 😅

If you waited a few more hours, you would have been dreaming too - permanently.

Big Balls

@BigHossHackworth

7 ай бұрын

Not sure how that helicopter lifted them..

Dude is in his 60s now

10 days later it went off.

When news was news and not pure sensationalism

2020 hindsight

Betcha dollars to donuts he soiled his shorts when Mt. Saint Helens did blow its top.

Would there not be a huge expectation put in place by the large numbers of concerned viewers expecting KATU photographer Phil Beard to actually have a full beard if his name contained the word beard in the first place.

Imagine Don Lemon up there talking CNN at the mountain.

In this reporter are still alive? Or not?

Peoples risk taking was something else back then. Landing on ash covered snow, that's falling into a crater with threats of the whole mountain exploding....hold my microphone. It's a wonder it didn't all just collapse right then from the weight of the balls of those people including that pilot.

Reporter seems excited to be there. Bet he has never forgotten that day

Damn.. That’s his “I’m going on live tv” shirt. 1980 was so cool 😂

Thats when men had a set brass balls this big ( police academy 3) and not wearing a bikini with a box.

It was time to leave ! you were lucky...

Reporting now a days. They’d be there reporting on the lack of diversity of the professors and wondering why no one has placed a rainbow flag on the summit.

Now you can call it Mount St. Hell No.

A mountain growing at a rate of about one foot per day is extraordinarily bad sign! Very bad things are going to happen, because a mountain shouldn't be growing like that!

Kaboom

darwin failed us again

Pro-tip: stand on the other side of the crack.

Ballsy

Utter stupidity, not science.

He was asking for an express ticket to the Darwin Awards straddling cracks near the rim. Brilliant reporting eh?

Well there is nothing unsafe standing on the mountain if its days from the eruption. duh