Mount St. Helens erupted on May 18, 1980. The volcano, located in southwestern Washington, used to be a beautiful symmetrical cone about 9,600 feet (3,000 meters) above sea level.
At 8:32 Sunday morning, May 18, 1980, Mount St. Helens erupted, shaken by an earthquake measuring 5.1 on the Richter scale, the north face of this tall symmetrical mountain collapsed in a massive rock debris avalanche. In a few moments this slab of rock and ice slammed into Spirit Lake, crossed a ridge 1,300 feet high, and roared 14 miles down the Toutle River.
The avalanche rapidly released pressurized gases within the volcano. A tremendous lateral explosion ripped through the avalanche and developed into a turbulent, stone-filled wind that swept over ridges and toppled trees. Nearly 150 square miles of forest was blown over or left dead and standing.
At the same time a mushroom-shaped column of ash rose thousands of feet skyward and drifted downwind, turning day into night as dark, gray ash fell over eastern Washington and beyond. Wet, cement-like slurries of rock and mud scoured all sides of the volcano. Searing flows of pumice poured from the crater. The eruption lasted 9 hours, but Mount St. Helens and the surrounding landscape were dramatically changed within moments.
A vast, gray landscape lay where once the forested slopes of Mount St. Helens grew. In 1982 the President and Congress created the 110,000-acre National Volcanic Monument for research, recreation, and education. Inside the Monument, the environment is left to respond naturally to the disturbance.
Credit: USDA/USFS
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- The ash from the Mount St. Helens eruption blanket the region. (Photo Archive / The Spokesman-Review)
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- Harry R Truman Mt St Helens Lodge Photo Credit: The Oregonian
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- Harry R Truman at the Mt St Helens Lodge. Photo Credit: USFS
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- Harry R Truman Owner of Mt St Helens Lodge Photo Credit: George Barker
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- The Coal Banks bridge over the Toutle River is swept away by mud and logs on May 18, 1980 because of the Mount St. Helens eruption. Roger Werth, The Daily News Todays info: If traveling east on SR 504, this would be the bridge across the Toutle River leaving the town of Toutle, headed towards Mt St Helens.
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- Log jam on Cowlitz River as a result of Mt St Helens eruption Photo credit: Cheryl Haselhorst; May 18, 1980
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- Log jam on the Cowlitz River as a result of Mt St Helens eruption.
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- Going outside after the eruption of Mount St. Helens meant donning some type of mask to filter out the swirling clouds of ash during the months after the May 18, 1980 event. (Photo Archive / The Spokesman-Review)
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- Two ladies in Odessa, Wash., stand ready with masks and broom to save their gardens and homes – or at least try battling the ash. With its fine texture and easy transport by wind, the ash moved from one house and right into the next door neighbor’s. Many homes found that cleaning up was an exercise in frustration. By the time you finished the second room the first one was full again. (Photo Archive / The Spokesman-Review)
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- Don Pease waits to take off in his experimental Boeing F-86 as the ash cloud from Mount St. Helens approaches Fairchild Air Force Base in Spokane around 2:30 p.m., May 18. 1980. (The Spokesman-Review)
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- Phil Harris went to Wenatchee for the weekend. On his way home he had to stay overnight in both Moses Lake and Ritzville and cleaned his air filter four times in order to make it home. Ash covered his motor home inside and out. (Photo Archive / The Spokesman-Review)
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- A man waits for a bus in downtown Spokane on Sunday, May 18 at 3 p.m. as ash begins to fall from the eruption of Mount St. Helens. (J. Bart Rayniak)
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- Washington State Patrol Trooper Jim LaMunyon set up a road block at Interstate 90 and Geiger Road in Spokane. An emergency was declared in Eastern Washington, and all State Highways were closed for several days after Mount Saint Helens erupted. (J. Bart Rayniak / The Spokesman-Review)
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- Air Force police officers stand beside a line of evacuation vehicles from Fairchild Air Force Base about 3:15 p.m. on May 18, 1980. The base was having its annual Open House with about 60,000 people viewing aircraft and exhibits. With the explosion of Mount St. Helens and the lack of adequate radio or news reports to the extent of the ash cloud, most of the people were still enjoying the show when ash started falling around Spokane. Getting 60,000 people out of the air base turned into one hectice chore, compounded by the total darkness. (J. Bart Rayniak / The Spokesman-Review)
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- J. BART RAYNIAK/PHOTO ARCHIVE The Spokesman-Review (Photo Archive / The Spokesman-Review)
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- Harry Truman & William O. Douglas In front of Mt St Helens Lodge Photo Credit: Devianart
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- Keith Domina takes a break from cleaning up ash from the eruption of Mount St. Helens in this May 19, 1980, file photo in Ritzville, Wash., one of the hardest hit towns in the aftermath of the eruption. (Jim Shelton / The Spokesman-Review)
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- Ash from the Mount St. Helens eruption covered fields and streets in Eastern Washington. (Photo Archive / The Spokesman-Review)
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- David Johnston at Coldwater II, May 17, 1980. David did not survive the next day’s eruption. Coldwater II would be eventually re-named ” Johnston Ridge” in honor of him. Photo taken 5.17.80 at 7:00 pm. David Alexander Johnston (December 18, 1949 – May 18, 1980.
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- Dave Amos slogs through the mud on the family farm with inner tubes strapped to his feet May 23, 1980. “We always get a lot of water here,” said his father, Jesse.” Hundreds of years ago this farm was right in the main river channel. When volcanic ash, logs and mud came down the Cowlitz River from Mount St. Helens Sunday, it buried all 118 acres of his grazing land in what looked like liquid concrete. Photo: Associated Press
Mt. St. Helens Eruption Timeline
Painting by Paul Kane Mount St. Helens erupting at night after his 1847 visit to the area
USFS Photograph taken before 18 May 1980 by Jim Nieland, US Forest Service, Mount St Helens National Volcanic Monument.
Photo of David A. Johnston, taken by Harry Glicken on May 17, 1980 at 19:00, 13 1/2 hours before the 1980 eruption of Mount St. Helens
On May 18, 1980, at 8:32 a.m. Pacific Daylight Time, a magnitude 5.1 earthquake shook Mount St. Helens. The bulge and surrounding area slid away in a gigantic rockslide and debris avalanche, releasing pressure, and triggering a major pumice and ash eruption of the volcano. Thirteen-hundred feet (400 meters) of the peak collapsed or blew outwards. As a result, 24 square miles (62 square kilometers) of valley was filled by a debris avalanche, 250 square miles (650 square kilometers) of recreation, timber, and private lands were damaged by a lateral blast, and an estimated 200 million cubic yards (150 million cubic meters) of material was deposited directly by lahars (volcanic mudflows) into the river channels. Sixty-one people were killed or are still missing. USGS Photograph taken on May 18, 1980
This composite photograph of the May 18, 1980 eruption was taken from 35 miles (60 km) west in Toledo, Washington. The ash-cloud stem is 10 miles (16 km) wide, and the mushroom top is 40 miles (64 km) wide and 15 miles (24 km) high. The footprint of the cloud stem is roughly the same as the devastated area north of the mountain where the forest was knocked down and which three decades later is still relatively barren.
