Up From The Ashes (1990) - Mount Saint Helens Documentary

think back to 1980 I want the world to know that I am NOT going to resume business as usual until our hatches are back here free and Ethel but time is now my fellow Americans to recapture our destiny to take it into our own hands [Music] [Applause] [Music] and in Southwest Washington Mount st. Helens is awaking shaking to life after more than a hundred years damn thing takes this mountain I'm going along with it everything was swept away there was there was nothing left here how did God my God says he'll tonight we want to take you back 10 years to the time before Mount Saint Helens exploded to hear the stories of the people who lived the stories of the people who died the stories that bring Mount st. Helens up from the ashes [Music] when did you first know something unusual was going a couple months before the big eruption I think it was March there were three pretty good-sized earthquakes and this is after st. Helens had been quiet for something like 123 years or something but things started rumbling yes and when those first whiffs came out we just all sat back in shock I always say what's going on it wasn't there a time then though when you thought maybe that was all it was gonna do we didn't have the faintest idea what was gonna do when it was gonna do it all or what was even likely to happen historically there had been other eruptions in the cascade chain Mount lassen had gone off occasionally Mount Shasta showed signs but they were all real subtle and when you have that kind of history disaster does not come to your mind I'll never forget the 27th of March when they told us it had actually burped the first little steam and ash pot they dumped us myself and a photographer in the helicopter zipped us down there threw us out on this snow-covered peak about 10 miles away and there we were all set to do the first live report from that the mountain looks like a scene out of a Christmas card there is no smoke there is no ash there is no steam coming out of Mount st. Helens right now we have just learned that a Forest Service aircraft going over the crater the top the summit of Mount st. Helens has reported that the crack the fissure in the center of that crater is getting bigger st. helens was the jewel of the Cascades but the jewel had a fiery flaw artist Paul Kane was among the first whites to see that flaw it was 1847 the Indians had lived with these eruptions for centuries to them st. Helens was Fire Mountain but by March 1980 old eruptions were ancient history I don't think that anything vertically is going to happen really at first the earthquakes came in ones and twos then swarms of them set seismograph needles dancing within days quake shook the mountain one a minute well I think the earthquakes have to be interpreted as a warning that something is coming it's been said for years that this mountain will blow at some time or another but I really don't think this is gonna mount to anything it still looks like the volcano is going through a throat clearing process as it were some geologists had called st. Helens potentially the most violent volcano in the country its historic eruptions in old eruptions prehistoric have been very explosive the initial phases would produce ash fall all over southwestern Washington and on the near flanks where we are right now would likely be covered by avalanches are very hot debris up to a thousand degrees centigrade and where we're standing right now what might be the consequence I wouldn't want to be here to talk about it we'd probably be killed dying was the last thing on the minds of sightseers hundreds and hundreds of sightseers they swarm to the mountain I want to see it blow it'd be great something you'd only get one chance in a lifetime to see the mountain blue one noon Thursday but he cited that evening to do a shirt and had it ready Friday [Music] roadblocks were set up but Cowlitz County had only 34 deputies his logging roads all over this country and we just can't control them all on April 3rd governor Dixie Lyrae declared an emergency don't try to get as close to the mountain as possible but that declaration and raise appeal did not mean the mountain or the surrounding area was closed to tourists it did allow the National Guardsmen to come in to help but even they could do little to keep determined sightseers away by now the volcano was spitting steam and ash hour after hour and geologists detected harmonic tremors rumbling through the mountain the long rolling shockwaves meant molten lava was on the move a bulge began to grow on the north side geologists had two theories one that the summit was sliding the other that molten rock was pushing up looking for a way out by month's end the Bulge was three hundred feet high rock slides eruptions and earthquakes ate away at the crater walls in just 30 days since the first eruption st. Helens was rocked by more big quakes than California gets in ten years finally on April 30th governor Rey signed an order closing portions of the mountain this order will establish two zones one a red zone from which all people are excluded and a larger blue zone at which people will be permitted to go only on a day to day basis and only during daylight hours the public believed the so called red zone was a ten-mile circle around st. Helens and the blue zone a 20 mile circle they weren't here's how they really looked the western edge of the red zone was barely three miles from the summit its border backed right up to where Houser timberland the trees were outside the Forbidden Zone logging continued and scores of sightseers set up camp in the same areas believing they were safe but some began to worry just you know and it comes what can we do you know do we have time to get out or you know is it going to come quick I have [ __ ] this out for a year I knew this is a colored I'm not got god damn dumb I may be old word I'm kind of cute about it Harry Truman had been in Mount st. Helens backyard since 1929 he and his wife ran this Lodge at the west end of Spirit Lake she had died three years ago and in 1980 harry would tell you he'd let the place go a bit since then these days his company was an ever-present whiskey and coke but he still felt fiercely protective of the lodge right down to its sign me that them signs been there 50 some years what if you took it down well I'm not gonna take it down nobody's going to take it down able to take me down in a wooden kimono down that road that's backwards when I go down that road or I'm not leaving and I'm not doing take my name off of that sign that sandblasted I've changed it five times in my life and it's going to set there let rights down oh my god I'd like to see the man that's going to take that sign off that post we would get used to hearing Harry talk that way the usually scholarly National Geographic magazine would later note that he raised profanity to a new high that conclusion didn't surprise anyone who had talked with Harry about the volcano you see Harry and his wife always said they would spend the rest of their days at Spirit Lake and Harry didn't see any reason to change that now the mountain may have been moving but he wasn't excited shaking running in there it said come on Truman evacuate they're getting held on out of here they said the office down then cuz we read you and said you come out and bring everybody with you I said hell I'm not going they said we're bringing with you and I said you tell them by God I'm not leaving you wanna get out of here but while that side of Harry may be familiar to you here's a side you haven't seen for in this portion of an interview a portion that never got on the air Harry let it slip that underneath all that cussing and crustiness he was afraid afraid of earthquakes see one of those big quakes I had a few years ago roll me right out of bed that big us you understand bed and that scares you so I've been scared of them ever since and I'm scared em yet you chew it I'm shaking like a leaf now they don't have my mouth and glasses but you're still not gonna leave no and I'm not going to try to hit my mouth no I'm not gonna leave right I'm not gonna leave I'm gonna stay here damn right this is my home that's gonna have to come and get me and no authority can take me out of here no authority dare those sheriffs are nobody they know better than that tackle Truman you can always go back I never talked to the man but I kept thinking you can always go back get out of there while you can and he just wouldn't leave he was like that he was like the rest of us I think I don't think he believed I don't think any of us believed that it could possibly blow up Harry Truman was so stubborn I mean so many people went him and said get out of there you're crazy and I think a lot of us thought he was crazy but there was something to be admired too because he didn't want to leave his home that crazy damn stupid people see that then say that craziest man in gaad's reader those old Truman you know the week before the eruption though no one still could anticipate how big it was gonna be I think people started getting a little bit worried I think it was the 8th of May there was a pretty good-sized eruption people started moving out and then think the feds came in and they started saying let's let's get folks out of here because this could turn into something though they still didn't know how big it was gonna be no I remember seeing some videotape of a guy who said I just want to go in and get snowmobiles I think it wasn't here under my own responsibilities I go up and get hey we wouldn't be in there ten minutes there were a lot of people that were really in our face about this business of not letting anyone in there you don't have any right to keep us out of there we're gonna sue you well get off the phone and go do it you know I'm busy les Nelson was busy keeping property owners and sightseers away from the mountain was too much for his tiny force to handle people were getting restless for many st. helens was becoming a hassle and inconvenience even a joke some ash here some steam there but what was all the fuss about even government geologists sounded vague we've tried some rather simplified calculations of what might conceivably go and it depends so much on the assumptions that we thought we haven't come up with anything useful Thursday May 15th Sheriff last Nelson heads up to Spirit Lake for what would be his last chat with Harry Truman that was an ominous place that was strange an eerie feeling to be up there at that mountain it was extremely quiet everything but Harry was quiet and he said I'll be stranded up here but you guys can throw me a loaf of bread or something out of a helicopter or something he said we'll be all right here and I guess that I I respected that he was entitled to to be left there what would you have arrested him for for being in his home on a quiet evening other people want to be in their homes on the mountain - how would you feel you honesty we're paying taxes and we would we'd like to use our property I'm not afraid it's Saturday May 17th Washington State Patrol Chief Robert Landon has his hands full property owners fed up with the roadblocks have forced this showdown in tootle 25 miles downstream from the volcano Landon has an offer he hopes will calm them governor race position on this is that she wants to be of some assistance to the property owners and let you go in and then at your own risk and take care of whatever you have to take care of officers lead the group up the mountain in a convoy everyone in together in the morning everyone out together at 6:00 that night with the promise of a second trip in the morning some people think all this caution is a bit silly we've lived there a long time and we've seen all kinds of conditions on this road and on that mountain and I feel that our our home is safe but come tomorrow nothing will be safe yeah I can't I really don't know how to describe it it was just a feeling that something was going to happen and I just needed to be here como photographer Dave Crockett had covered the mountain every day for three weeks but a couple of days before the 18th he'd been rotated out sent home for arrest Dave didn't rest and I just woke up one night and that's where I am and decided it was time to get back down here and start taking more pictures of the mountain start covering a story again I just really wanted to be here to cover what I felt it was probably gonna be the biggest story of the decade but the story of the decade nearly killed Dave Crocker as you can tell probably for this picture I'm walking towards the only light I can see on top of a ridge and here the mountain behind me rumbling the enormous mud and water so I came down washed out the road I never really thought I'd believe this or say at this moment i honest-to-god believe I'm dead when we come back Dave Crockett struggle to survive right up to Valley Stream yeah this is it it shouldn't be hard to find the place that almost became your grave but young trees now blur once familiar ash and mud landmarks in ten years the mountains scars have softened down that's where I was right over there exactly on that Sunday morning ten years ago this was the mountain Dave Crockett came to photograph he joined hundreds of others waiting hoping for something to happen on a ridge to the north Gary Rosenquist and Joel Harvey had set up a camera I look over and back and I see the Sun Sun coming up through the trees that's it well that'd really be a nice shot the crater area it was all golden if some was just on that area right there Dave Crockett was just arriving at the mountain again I can't I really don't know how to describe it it was just a feeling that something was going to happen and I just needed to be here directly north of the volcano ham radio operator Jerry Martin had started his morning broadcast on an emergency Network it is 8:32 a.m. for men on the mountain their world is about to come apart Gary Rosenquist starts snapping pictures [Music] Jerry Martin's broadcast ends with those words and Joel Harvey is watching it was just cresting this last ridge and it's rolling real slow you can see the heat wave on top I didn't know there's a heat wave or shock wave I remember seeing that and it was just crest rolling over this Ridge and coming at us as we were pulling out of the campsite I thought no we don't stand a chance of getting out of here photographers Rosenquist and Harvey are in a race for their lives so is Como's Dave Crockett I knew I had to get out of there I started down the valley look at my rubric nerve and there's just a wall of debris mud steam rocks boulders and full-sized trees just rolling along whole valleys disappearing behind me came down here ended up right here I was right about here the whole toll little area here just disappeared this big explosion of mud and I was just blocked off I'm at that point I just jumped out on my car grabbed my film camera and then went right up there in that Ridge where I had a view just over the trees of the mountain and I could see what was happening I opened the door and the alarm started going off but it was kind of the least of my concerns at that point the ground is moving I could feel the earthquakes the wind is being sucked up towards the mountain towards the blast by this time you can hear the mountain rumbling constant rumbling grinding growling sound [Music] I had this huge cloud of material a lightning and blue and purple his colors rumbling - lightning hitting the ground I had to get away from that Dave starts walking uphill through the steaming mud through the ash cloud he turns on the camera and starts to talk to God whoever finds this I don't know you can't see this I'm sure sir it's too dark I've left the car behind there's a gear we got one magazine and as you can tell public in this picture I'm walking towards the only lot I can see on top of a ridge and here the mountain behind me rumbling the enormous mud and water so I came down washed out the road I never really thought I'd believe this or say it this moment i honest-to-god believe I'm dead just really no no way or describe those he likes he'll the ash now my eyes getting very hard to breathe burnt to be any hope talking he's burnt debris burns my eyes how did God my God says hell I just can't describe his pitch-black just pitch black sister this is hell on earth they like you - oh one step there time just keep walking go ahead like a man there's more air to me oh yeah I'm not sure in the camera off mic I promise to it but oh my god oh my god oh they're about ten minutes here now totally pitch black I can't see keep on walking yes I just have to sit down here and wait it out god I pray to God that's all I'm doing and sitting here waiting it out God Oh Joe God it's very very hard to breathe in this I can't see a thing I don't like it keep walking you don't only if I do something only I could do something you know it's just sitting here yeah I get the wrong attitude here and that's to be something to tell my grandchildren about him I'm not sure in the camera off maybe I live hopefully I'll be coming back and talk to you later ask a little bit of break I'm getting little green keep walking again start walking again he goes wish me luck only only this error would clear for two minutes give me a clean clear breath of air I don't know what's in this stuff I can tell you one thing it's yeah this stuff is not made for humans to breathe yeah I'm sitting down resting again I just can't breathe I only walked about fifty feet since I taught you last guy there just give me a break just one 5-minute run party well I'm trying the radio that's him on the portable think I can get over here goes I don't know why I'm recording yes but yeah well here goes Mayday Mayday Mayday does anybody copy this unit it's portable five Mayday Mayday Mayday my gosh I realized how badly I wanted to live I want to live so bad it's completely been completely black in your again I can't see I can't see a foot in front of my face yeah she's coming down very heavy on me breathing isn't getting any harder that's that's encouraging it's hard but it's dead it's not getting any harder see they've gotten very dark in your nice a horrible thought or else I'm blind I don't know what's in the stuff I can feel it falling on me you can't see anything god I want to live you know Shane you were right you were right Tran when I saw that mountain go I turned a car around and I could see in the river mirror you know I could see the stuff coming there was no way I was gonna outrun that I just parked that car and I started running for high ground and that mud flow came down it came within three feet of the car man with trees trees and boulders and things you know five times as big as that news car ran about 50 feet from me my god you were right never should come up here you were right I still say I'm gonna live to tell my grandchildren about this so with God's help guides help am conserve fill him again hey the breeze started blowing the ash out and all of a sudden I realized I could breathe a little better and I could see a little bit of greenness it wasn't pitch-black I could see maybe a couple feet yeah at that point I took a photograph of myself at the wide-angle lens you held the camera out in front of me and click my big smile on my face I was just covered with ash you know it's just my hair was sticking straight out but I think you can tell from the expression on my face I thought and then maybe I was gonna get out well I finally realized I had made I was gonna live I just started laughing and screaming out loud and just yelling at the man st. helens would claim many lives today but not this one wouldn't you know as I think back on it I remember the weather it was a crystal-clear day beautiful sunshine at Sunday morning and I know this sounds funny but I was up real early and I swear I heard it felt it something I remember that morning vividly but I was still sound asleep 8:30 I hear this little as a backfire a car or something I'm real groggy and just roused out of sleep and so I roll over and go back to sleep for a while and after a while the telephone comes rings telephone rings get in here the mountain has exploded ice no not possible no wait yeah the mountains are rapid and so like Steve we just rush pell-mell in here to try desperately to figure out what the heck is going on people were just intense at that point to the point I think we're for a while it was really chaos yeah I was a little farther away so I didn't feel the presence as much as I saw it I was in my last year of school at Pullman and I'll never forget you said it was crystal clear I looked out over the wheat fields and on the horizon you could see this enormous black cloud moving across the horizon and I thought that is the biggest storm that's the most incredible thing I've ever seen you know within hours it was black pitch black in the middle of a day and a few hours later the a started to fall I remember the first time I did see this scene of well they said it was noon they said it was a bright sunny day and it was just pitch black I couldn't believe it I said okay it really wasn't noon it could that couldn't be that black and then I kept seeing more pictures of all that ash and steam and Here I am living 2,000 miles away from here in Milwaukee and I don't remember if it was the next day two days later three days later we started getting ash as broadcasting students this was a big story compared to covering Holman school board meetings you know this was something pretty big we pulled all the experts we could into the studio there and we're dealing with a lot of unknowns I'm sure but have you got any idea of what the effect of all this ash is going to have on the ash was so novel to all of us I mean when it started to fall I remember all of us going outside and looking at it and it was so right and it got into your car and into your mouth and your eyes and if your nose and in your hair and it was everywhere the other sense that I remember is a real sense of foreboding because you came face to face with the power of nature and it was so overwhelming in scope and in size and the sense that you get was it was really quite strange because you wonder how long is this going to go on I mean how bad could this get how much could blow up and you have no answers to these questions and you feel very very helpless and I think that was the feeling that all of us had in the back of your mind you're trying to be a professional you're trying to do your job you're trying to get the story at the same time you're thinking I'm part of this I'm not just reporting on it I'm part of this it was scary it's the worst thing in the world I've never seen anything like it the eruption tore 1,300 feet off the mountain and what had been snow melted instantly into a raging flood tide carrying off everything in its path water just started rising up over the top then logs started jamming up against the bridge there and just tumbled like a toy mud rocks and shattered trees choked the north and south forks of the Toutle River the force of the water demolished a warehouser logging camp trees tossed around like toothpicks trucks twisted and flattened we were trying to just get everybody you know cleared out of the area and and by that time we could hear the trees snapping that were coming down the river on that Sunday morning ten years ago Greg Drew came down to the family grocery store in tootle to stand guard he didn't stay long I'll never forget that sound as long as I live because when we were as we were running up the hill to safety that that's the thing that I could hear was all of that snapping just like you were there snapping kindling across your name as Greg and his neighbors ran others watched their dreams drown what happened to your home the mud flow got it totaled it out and I have nothing except for what my kids and I grabbed when we got in the car what the water didn't carry off the ash threatened and refugees fled both well we couldn't breathe the baby was having breathing problems and we come on in we barely made it others staggered out of the hills their cars coated in ash an inch thick it's unfit place for man or beast I'll tell you it's a good way to get killed it's terrible the ash cloud rose 12 miles it's smothered everything and across the Cascades the ash blinded Eastern Washington it was kind of weird when it just turned black outside there's only what 12 o'clock it was just after noon pitch brackets roads closed the state was cut in half and cut off thousands were stranded in a nightmare landscape visibility got so bad a lot of times that you just had to stop you couldn't go any farther because you couldn't see you can't even see the hood of your car a small inconvenience compared to what Bob McMahon faced on his farm in Randall just north of the volcano what about your alfalfa field how much do you have flat it's it was about two and a half feet high and now it's probably six inches high and covered with mud ten years ago a Como news crew walked to Bob's fields with him they had been smothered with nearly an inch of ash the eruption of the ash spooked his herd it was a day he cannot forget beautiful it's just like the day of the ash fall it was just a day similar to this for 70 years McMahon's family had survived floods and snow and killing frost yet nothing could prepare them for May 18th mud ball started falling in swimming pool and only herbicides and marbles and you can hear the thunder off all these clouds they they were just interlaced with lightning and the Thunder were just continues of course I was scared and nervous and didn't know what to expect and was fearful for what might happen next you know as it turned out bob had nothing to fear but what was happening around the mountain was far worse than anyone could imagine aboard a National Guard helicopter sheriff les Nelson flew up the Toutle River toward the blast zone right up in front of that mountain and I don't know of any way to describe it other than I just felt like I was flying through the gates of hell and looking at Spirit Lake you know I I couldn't see the lake and I finally dawned on us that it was just had turned brown with mud and dirt and loaves soon President Jimmy Carter would see firsthand the fury of the mountain and like the country sheriff the president would be awestruck enormous blocks of ice apparently still covered by literally hundreds of feet of fluffy face powder type ash enormous cave-ins a taking place steam is bubbling up it's much worse than anything I've ever seen pictures of the moon's surface jes Haggar Minh was a National Guard chopper pilot a Marine combat veteran he had faced death in Vietnam but ten years ago he prayed he could reach the living in time you know you sort of always hoped that you know maybe there's somebody behind a hill or in a cave or somehow that could have survived and it was with that hope that rescue crews flew in to the devastation National Guard Army Air Force pilots sheriff's deputies and volunteers their job to find someone alive or bring out the bodies when we flew on up the North Fork of the Toutle that first day we hit the ash and it was kind of like flying around in a milk bottle with milk in it he did find two men alive and went to carry one out when I got up to him he had big open sores probably about the size of silver dollars all over his face big open welts and the other thing that I remember is as close as I picked him up it was just like all of his clothes were scorched with an iron and if you just pulled it apart like that it would just shred that's Sunday afternoon in Kelso su ruff staggered out of a chopper she and her friend Bruce Nelson and their dogs had been 14 miles from the mountain others with them did not make it out took two of our best friends wives pilot Mike Cairns had rescued sue and Bruce survivor grant Christensen was trying to find out if anyone had seen his brother the two are separated after the eruption for some families the agony of separation of not knowing would go on for days I'm damned angry Bob graves daughter and son-in-law had not been found other people are missing relatives in there if they as civilians can hike up that damn mountain and why can't these people that were paying our tax dollars to in the army get off their Duff's and get up there Bob graves could not see what the searchers saw why just getting up there was so hard [Music] and all too often when they did make it they found what Jess Hagerman found a pickup truck the life blasted out of it the only merciful thing about the scene was that death had come quickly these two people that we found the driver still had his hands on the wheel his head was up the passenger had his head and hands folded in his lap and just sitting there north of the mountain another search crew went in the ash and muck were four feet deep they searched for a mining camp and a cabin three people were missing here the only hope deputy sheriff Brian Hill and his dog Hauser trained to sniff out the dead and the living the search turned up all three victims the team marked the graves they would come back later to retrieve the bodies and there would be many bodies too many and too often too young across the country people picked up their newspapers and saw in this photo the horror of the volcano in Renton one man picked up his newspaper and saw in his photo his 11-year old grandson it was a rainy afternoon when como photographer Dave Crockett walked us back ten years back to the same place he had struggled through escaping the eruption and the ash cloud and we opened up the past they call survivor guilt I wonder why I got out and a lot of people didn't for a couple years I had dreams where I'd come back up in here with rescue people and I go through the trees and the ash and we'd find bodies and and they'd ask me you know looking at these bodies well why didn't you do something to help these people you know I could intellectually I knew it wasn't my fault but I just I think just emotionally I just I couldn't quite shake it it took Dave years to shake the guilt Jess hangman still flies for the National Guard and there's a warehouser pilot he knows the mountain now as well as anyone flying around the mountain that first day and and days afterwards it made you feel about about that big about as big as a gnat in in a whole universe 10 years ago Jess helped to rescue seven survivors in the blast zone for his courage and skill he was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross calots County Sheriff les Nelson says he doesn't care if he ever sees the mountain again Nelson retired four years ago Bob McMahon still farms his place in Randall the ash had no long-term effect on his crops or his herd Joel Harvey and Gary Rosenquist the photographer's who captured the volcano's fury on film and lived to tell about it never got rich off their luck ten years later that doesn't seem to bother them I've tried to not let it make a difference in my life I tried to downplay it as much as I can why could he get a big head about something I didn't want it to change me I was pretty happy with who I was no I don't want to change and the two really haven't changed much Joel still works for the post office Gary used to drive a bus for Metro they are of course the lucky ones the survivors 57 people died that Sunday 10 years ago at first the officials even the president were quick to criticize the victims for their foolishness curious people refused to comply with the directives issued by the governor the local sheriff the State Patrol and others and the slipped around highway barricades and entered the dangerous area when it was well-known to be very dangerous but Carter was wrong only three of the 57 who died were in the so-called red zone that danger zone and if the blast had happened one day later warehouser loggers would have been in the very same place as the tourists were and hundreds would have been killed the victims families sued the state and sued warehouser but they lost some small cash settlements were made but nothing could repay what the mountain had taken it took geologist David Johnston he had predicted that violent eruption and Sunday morning when the mountain blew Johnston was on a ridge tops tearing down the volcano's throat he radioed his colleagues Vancouver Vancouver this is it but by the time the message reached them Johnston was dead three weeks after the eruption a helicopter touched down on the blasted barren ground that was once the Mount st. Helens Lodge the place Harry Truman had called home inside the chopper his sister jerriwhiting Harry had never had a chance she knew that now and she had come to say goodbye some final thoughts on the mountain today when we come back I think one of the most phenomenal things about watching what's happened at st. Helens since the eruption is watching the life return and to see how nature works and we went down to Spirit Lake a couple of years after the eruption and took some divers down there and went in and and saw the return of life to a lake that had been dead completely devoid of any oxygen of any life whatsoever and here you could see little zooplankton and things swimming around and starting to come back I think the thing that most impressed me when I finally got a chance to get close to the mountain was the scale I flew down there with our helicopter pilot in air 4 we went right into the crater and landed next to the lava dome and the scale imagine eight kingdoms stacked on top of each other I have flown down there like you inside the crater around the lava dome and you're up about eight or nine thousand feet and suddenly you feel very small and very fragile and very insignificant like your home you're sitting in the palm of somebody's hand and you begin to realize just how strong how powerful how overwhelming the forces are that are there inside the mountain it really makes you sit and take stock of who you are and what you are and it can make you very humble but humility comes hard for us in a technological age an age in which we feel we control so much a trip to Mount st. Helens reminds us of how much we do not control plants returned without us animals return without us and the mountain erupts without our being able to predict when or how violently without our even knowing what to do st. Helens is beyond our control and perhaps that's why we find ourselves drawn to it to see the result of the awesome power displayed here and a portion of our earth being recreated and yet as the lava dome rebuilds what was once st. Helens perfect peak were reminded that the 1980 eruption is only one of dozens and dozens of eruptions in the mountains 40,000 year history and it will almost certainly happen again so we wonder will we live to see the volcanoes awesome power again and what story will come up from those ashes [Music] you

Channel: KOMO News

Views: 14,567

Keywords: KOMO, KOMO News, News, Seattle News, Washington News, Breaking News, TV News, Seattle Local News, Seattle Sports

Id: vhU0X8UMroA

Length: 49min 19sec (2959 seconds)

Published: Mon May 18 2020