The Eruption of Mount St. Helens: A Survivor's Story

The first two days after the eruption were pitch black. Soft ash fell quietly and started to build layered mounds around us. Dead fish floated on top of the lake. Not even the birds wanted to eat them then, but that changed around the fourth day. Purple lightning streaked the black sky, illuminating the lake which was now completely covered by a blanket of ash...

This is a true story of how me and my family lived through the 1980 eruption of Mount St. Helens in Washington State.

When the mountain blew, I was camping with my family in Eastern Washington. Being a Sunday, there were many families in the area enjoying the lake and surrounding forest.

Around midday, we noticed gray-black clouds barreling towards us. Since we didn't have a radio, we could only speculate that an unforecasted thunder storm was blowing in to the area...until the sun was completely blotted out.

My dad, my hero, gathered all us kids in to the camping trailer. He ordered us to stay put and said he'd be right back. Out of fear, we begged him not to go but he had no choice because my mom was missing. She had taken the boat out earlier on the lake to scout out some good fishing holes.

Three hours later, my dad returned with my mom. They were covered with volcanic ash and couldn't stop coughing it up. We surrounded them, hugging and crying. They brought back the news that the mountain erupted and the winds had blown the ash and soot in our direction.

All of us families at the campsite pooled our food and water and faith. After the third day, the rations ran out along with the expectation that any forest ranger would be coming to help us. Desperate, a few families decided to try to get out. By then the sun gave just enough light for them to start their rigs and follow the path out of the campground. They hadn't counted on the ash being sucked in to the engines and stalling their rigs every few yards.

By day five, all escape options had been tried and all had failed. My dad decided we were going to have to try again to drive out, that nobody was coming to look for us, and he had an idea but wasn't sure if it would work.

He rounded up all of our socks and stuffed them into the exhaust pipes of the rigs and tied or stuffed them around the parts of the engine that would intake air when they were started. He hoped that the socks would filter enough ash from getting to the engine so we could drive out.

He arranged a signal to the rest of the families. If our rig could make the climb up the path to the top of the ridge, he would flash the headlights. At that point, he would wait for the other families to catch up before we would all caravan out of the campground together.

It worked and it took us forever to get home. We found our neighborhood buried under ash and it took years to clean up and erase the evidence of the eruption.

To this day, when my brother and sisters and I retell the story to our kids, we make sure that they understand that their Grandpa was a hero. We all still live in the Pacific Northwest under the threat of potential eruptions from the volcanoes in this area, part of the infamous "ring of fire".

A couple of years ago, Mount St. Helens rumbled to life again. Ash clouds and steam were released from its dome and several earthquakes were reported in the area. My kids and husband were gathered in front of the television, watching the live footage from the breaking news cast.

The twenty-eight year old memory flashed back into the forefront of my mind. I remember feeling sick and my mouth going dry. I stood in the kitchen gripping the back of one of our dining room chairs so hard, my hands were shaking. My husband noticed I had gone quiet and came over to where I was standing. He wrapped his arms around me and whispered to me that he was going to take care of us, that there was no way he was going to let this mountain get us.

My dad would have been so proud of him.