Mount St Helens First Reports - Late March 1980 | KATU In The Archives

A selection of the first few stories detailing the volcanic activity of Mt St Helens in March 1980, months before the mountain would fully erupt.

0:00 - The first earthquakes - Stan Wilson reports
2:15 - Inside the command post - David Jackson reports
4:45 - Aerial views of eruption plumes - Robin Anderson reports

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[luvluv]

This video was a great find. I haven't seen too much pre eruption.

[DK-gyll]

These old news stories are always fascinating in retrospect. The scientists were clearly worried, but they were very muted in their assessments because they were afraid to rock the boat. There was simply too much pressure from Weyerhauser and the local residents to allow business as usual to go on. Meanwhile the government took their muted assessments as Gospel and failed to close off a larger area around the mountain.

[mrmike]

Dr David Johnston was the one who landed on the Volcano and got the sample.

[oscarkoop]

People complained and moaned that they wanted to go to their property and that the government was to controlling and overstepping because nothing was going to happen. Then it blows and those same people criticized the government for not making the safety area bigger.😅 We had never experienced anything like that in modern times nor have we since, those geologists had no idea how powerful it was going to be and how much damage it would cause. The scary thing is that this was most likely a small one in comparison to others that happened in the past.

[hmtnhk]

It was a magnificent and splendorous mountain.

[allenra]

The initial phreatic explosions would tell us now that there was a danger, that hot magma was not very far below the surface if it was causing ground water to flash into high pressure steam and blowing holes in the mountain. I did not get to see any of these broadcasts, although we lived east of Salem, OR. I was working in Peru and did not get back to the US until October. We didn't even get the news of the eruption until July, when one of the guys from Portland received the newspapers in the mail from his parents.

[LovingIdaho]

I remember when the mountain started steaming in March of 1980 .
Our home was close to 5 miles from the mountain on st helens loop rd .
Our fish in the aquarium in the living room would try to jump out of the water with each earthquake .
No one really believed the warning of what could happen mainly because the people warning us had no real idea what would happen . It could just stay like it was right now and steam now and then or the state of washington could be blown off the map .
The first eruption was in April 1980 . After that, we moved down to our grandpas place on headquarters rd.
We watched it from there when it erupted again on May 18, 1980 .
The logging camp that was located across the road ( 2500) from our property was destroyed and the river had changed it’s route .
Also, the green bridge we fished by was gone and down the river and looked like a pretzel .

[eblackadder]

I remember Stan Wilson at KATU, but I have no recollection of Robin Anderson way back then.

[KyleStansfeld-zigc]

To me, it’s always amazing how little we can predict, we really have no clue! It turned out to be a most significant eruption! Beyond our wildest imagination!

[LindaMerchant-bqhp]

Beautiful yet deadly danger below that hill

[milkbone]

I see it every day from the dog park :)

[ScoobyDoobyDoo]

Oh this is good news and a bit different from earlier reports. Sounds like Blazers will be in full 1080p starting in October not 480i and not January and there will be games on KATU proper not CHARGE!. This is good news. Been a lot of confusing and conflicting information floating around. I wasn't a ROOT fan but I had easy access to it and I could record it. In the last 3 days, I've now gone from excited that the games are on KATU, to frustrated and lied-to that none of the games will be on KATU and will be on a sister station broadcast in 480i that I don't get, to now being optimistic again that the games will be available on 1080p on a station I do get. It's been a very confusing rollout by the Blazers & KATU and their respective mouth-pieces.

[brianbeecher]

I was eleven yrs old and guessed correctly that it was gonna blow, couldn't believe people were so stupid to ignore the bulge that was forming on the one side, then whent on to blow half the mountain away as it slid then blew the side wall out !! I prayed for them all ..Godbless all and who've passed all will be missed!! Godbless all...Mr b