(click and click again to enlarge photos)
Forty stories for the 40th anniversary
Most of these stories originated via the Mount St. Helens Visitor Center. These were edited by us and are presented in alphabetical order.
Click the links below to read the stories. Some are short, some are quite long. Ten stories are illustrated with photos. One (#24) even includes an audio recording of the eruption!
— Jean Sherrard and Clay Eals
- “A stolen, handmade grandfather’s clock,” by K. Ammons
- “Like a lot of hairspray on everyone’s head,” by Ginger Andersen (then Hartel)
- “Insane night in an Ellensburg dorm,” by Jeff Anderson
- “Thicker and thicker, darker and darker,” by Robert Arleth
- “Like a still picture, too large,” by Les Atlas
- “Remember reading about Pompeii?” by Keith Bilodeau
- “Birds flying, some dying,” by Randy Brawley (PHOTOS)
- “Clean Up the Great Northwest,” by Doris Brevoort (PHOTO)
- “Good timing that day,” by Lisa Perry (then Clark)
- “Like black-and-white TV,” by April Cohrs
- “Outrunning St. Helens,” by Kathleen Coleman (PHOTOS)
- “Paying attention after a ho-hum attitude,” by Beth Cross (PHOTOS)
- “Don’t touch the car,” by Holly Garland
- “Without warning, visibility straight to zero,” by Ken Giesbers
- “A dark cloud line with cotton ball-like swirls,” by Cheryl and Doug Hargin
- “Difficult to be seen in the volcanic debris,” by Stephen Hart
- “Perhaps the last summit of St. Helens,” by Charlie Hickenbottom (PHOTO)
- “Like a cannon – in Port Angeles,” by Janet Kailin and Jack Hughes
- “We thought we were dead,” by John Killeen
- “Sheets of mud on the windshield,” by Debbie King
- “Ash clothes turn into costume contest,” by Laurie Lindblad (PHOTOS)
- “An eerie and quiet summer,” by Tom Maffeo (PHOTO)
- “Plumes of ash come off with the spray,” by Toni Massey-Wheeler
- “Unique sounds from 140 miles away,” by Dave Miller
- “Collapsed roof due to ash weight,” by Mary Minton
- “Winter wonderland, but hot,” by Patti L. Mitchell (PHOTOS)
- “A jar of ash in the mail,” by Karin H. Molander
- “Glad we didn’t go back to Juniper Ridge,” by Michael Mouat
- “Not among the missing,” by Robert New (PHOTOS)
- “Far apart from each other, a family reacts,” by Kim Poole, Vicki Moore and Brenda Moore
- “A sense of awe and respect,” by Roland Ruby
- “Mud balls falling from the sky,” by Marji Ruzicka
- “Time in the crater,” by Mike Senchyna
- “The enormity of destruction, from the air,” by Edward Sims (PHOTO)
- “The ash piling up like snow,” by Jayne Farquharson Stallons
- “Graceful, inspiring, enigmatic, self-destructive,” by David Swinford
- “The greatest story of our careers,” by Dan Tolva
- “Cleaning after steam-cleaning,” by Pat Turner
- “You could feel the hair on your arms,” by Bill Varner
- “Like a cannon – in Bellingham,” by Karen Weber
BONUS: “Ash launches a once-in-a-lifetime trip,” by Clay Eals (PHOTOS)