Posted on 05/18/2005 8:41:21 AM PDT by HairOfTheDog
Please please post your memories and photos!
Ping...
Baynative, are you doing WA pings now?
Yeah, and the Darwin Awardee who said that was killed in the eruption. He, of all people, should have known better.
Blessed are the risk-takers, for they shall receive their reward!
Darn, I have lots of great pics that I've downloaded, but they're all on my computer at home. I'll have to post a few when I get home from work.
Good grief... they went to see it, because it was a volcano ;~D
I have no personal memories,, but my first cousin once-removed was in a little plane over it when it erupted.
FWIW, she lived to tell the tale and sell her photos and write about it.
Is she a blonde, fortiesh woman? -We saw an interview last night on PBS with a woman who was in a plane... She showed pictures taken right then that I don't think were widely seen before.
Ah...Yes....My son's 10th Birthday!!!
We were watching a special on TV last night that had an interview with her. Or at least with ~someone~ that was in little plane over it when it erupted. I guess there can't be too many of them. ;~D
Ah...Yes....My son's 10th Birthday!!!
Actually, I don't know the color of her hair; we're not at all close. But she's older than 40, probably closer to 60. Her name is Dorothy Something-or-other. She and her husband are geologists and they had hired a plane for the day to snap photos and check on changes. Very probably, that is the one y'all saw.
The cloud of ash reached Missoula, Montana (~400 miles downwind) by late that afternoon. It turned dark earlier than usual that evening, like a storm was comong. We got about 2 inches of ash in all by the next morning and were locked in our apartment for 4 days before a rain-storm finally turned the fluffy stuff into concrete.
It shut the town down because they said NOT to use your car as the ash was fine particles of volcanic glass which would get through the filters and erode the pistons and rings.
Reposting from another thread:
I was in high school... on a band trip up to Victoria, B.C. for a big parade. After the parade we got back to the bus, and the bus driver was listening to the radio... CBC radio was saying that volcanic bombs the size of volkswagons were falling on Seattle, Tacoma and Olympia. Lava was flowing into Tacoma... pretty much wiping out western Washington.
The band director found a phone where he could call the U.S. and let us know that the reports were slightly exaggerated. :-)
No, really... the size of volkswagons they were. :-)
The collective apoplexy that the local TV news was doing was just too much. They kept harping on the ash... that to breathe even the slightest bit was certain death. Surgical masks sold out everywhere. People were making huge cardboard and duct tape air filtering gizmos for their cars.
But most of western WA barely even got a discernable dusting of ash. Eastern WA was a different story... over there they were knee-deep in the stuff and it was a pretty horrific mess.
The worst part was that you couldn't just wash it away with water. Water just turned it into a sort of paste. Like wet cement.
It was a mess downwind for a long time. I went to college in Eastern WA in 1986, and ash was still everywhere... would blow around when it was dry, and just turn to paste when it was wet. You can still see it now in undisturbed areas... it just doesn't soak in.
I was in 8th grade I guess... and I remember seeing a few of the minor eruptions from our boat on Puget Sound.
I think I was in Yard Birds Market in Olympia with my dad on May 18. I remember listening to the radio in the sporting good dept with the store clerk.
I remember that there was quite a number of cottage industries that cropped up, making all sorts of stuff out of the ash.
My favorite was the "ash" trays. Heh.
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