It was to Lake Wichita I ventured on this fine May Day.
The third Saturday of the month.
And the anniversary of the day Mount Saint Helens exploded in my old Washington state home zone.
I was taking a bath on the Sunday morning that volcano blew up. I heard three loud concussive booms. Did not know it was the mountain exploding til a few minutes later when the next-door neighbor checked in to see if we knew the volcano had erupted. That turned into one long day of watching the non-stop news.
Anyway, back to Lake Wichita. This was the first time in over a year, maybe way over a year, since water was seen spilling over the Lake Wichita dam's spillway. And spilling in copious amounts it was.
Now we are at the top of the dam, looking through a chain link fence at the water spilling over the spillway.
Walking to the end of the Lake Wichita Boardwalk I saw these two guys fishing amongst the wood piers that are all that remains of the Lake Wichita Pavilion, which burned down way back in the 1950s.
The temperature is heading into the 90s today. The A/C is keeping my interior space cool.
Summer will soon be upon us. Record breaking heat is currently predicated. Not looking forward to that...
Looking out my viewing portal on the world, this May 18 of 2011, no matter which direction I look I can see no volcano.
Or mountain.
31 years ago this morning I was soaking my aching back in a hot tub when suddenly I heard a series of loud concussive booms.
I did not know what was causing the booming. A few minutes later my special needs neighbor waddled over to tell us that Mt. St. Helens had erupted.
I was about 150 miles north of the volcano when it blew up. My mom and dad were over at Ocean Shores, on the Pacific Ocean, digging for razor clams, with thousands of other razor clam diggers, when the mountain blew. Their location during the eruption was much closer to the volcano than mine. All I remember of my mom and dad's experience was the clam diggers were asked to evacuate the beach.
The days and weeks following the eruption were exciting times to be living in the Pacific Northwest. The first eruption blasted a cloud of ash eastward, covering much of Eastern Washington with a foot or so of ash. We were advised to get ash masks in case an eruption blew ash northward. I got an ash mask, but never really needed it. Only one time did a followup eruption blow a very small amount of ash into the Skagit Valley.
It just does not seem possible that it is over 3 decades ago that Mt. St. Helens blew her top. This was before CNN and all the other cable news. The local NBC, CBS and ABC affiliates went live soon after the explosion. There was no FOX then. When the first video of rampaging rivers and the exploding mountain came on the screen it was very shocking. I have no idea if the rest of the country was watching this, live, like they would be if it happened today.
If a Washington volcano erupted today it would quickly be the top trending Twitter topic. All the cable news stations would cover it live. Lots of amateur video would quickly appear.
I think I will go swimming now, totally safe, this morning, from the possibility of hearing the booms of an exploding volcano, while soaking in water, unlike 31 years ago.
No volcanoes to explode in Texas.
But, we do have an awful lot of potential mini-volcanoes in the form of Barnett Shale Natural Gas Wells.
I am having myself a melancholy day today. Not quite sure why. I have been known to have bouts of insomnia. The past couple weeks I've been having bouts of whatever the opposite of insomnia is. Definitely different for me.
I already mentioned on this blog and at least one of my other blogs, that today is the 30th Anniversary of the eruption of Mt. St. Helens.
That means it is also the 30th Anniversary of the Death of Harry Truman. Harry captured the imagination of the people of the Northwest with his stubborn refusual to leave his Lodge on Spirit Lake, way too close to the stewing Mt. St. Helens.
Harry Truman was born in 1896. Which would have made him 84 or 85 when his mountain blew up. I wonder if the same type event occurred today, if Mount Rainier or Mount Baker or any of the other Washington volcanoes decided to wake up, if the current powers that be would let a current day Harry Truman live out his life the way he wanted? Or would FEMA show up to haul him off?
I don't think FEMA existed back when Mt. St. Helens blew up. I don't recollect any huge federal help response, though the disaster was HUGE. I do recollect Jimmy Carter showing up.
Below is a video tribute to Harry Truman (I put this on my Washington Blog, liked it so much I decided to put it on my Texas blog, too), that hit me right on my melancholy mood, with the soundtrack being the #1 hit, way back when, titled "Your Spirit Lives On...."
You are looking at Mount St. Helens in the State of Washington in October of 1998, about 2 months before I began my exile in the Great State of Texas.
Right now, at 10:36 am, Central Time, in Texas, it is almost precisely 30 years, to the minute, since I was peacefully soaking my aching back in a hot tub of water when I heard 5 successive loud booms. May 18, 1980.
About 15 minutes later I learned the loud booms were due to Mount Saint Helens, after weeks of having the Pacific Northwest on edge with incessant rumbling, exploding in one of the biggest volcanic explosions in history.
Trust me, it was an interesting time to live in the Northwest. Things like "ash masks" become a necessary accoutrement.
About 4 months after the Big Bang I made my first attempt to see Mt. St. Helens in its post blow-up mode. Access was very restricted. If I remember right you could not get closer than 50 miles. That attempt, it was cloudy. I did not see the mountain.
It would be years later, in 1990 or 91 that I finally saw Mt. St. Helens up close. A logging road, from the north, had been expanded into the blast zone, with rudimentary visitor services. I went with a small group of 4, loaded with a big picnic.
You exited the main highway, on to a logging road, which twisted and turned through an old growth forest of big trees. And then, suddenly, a turn in the road brought the BLAST ZONE into view. I'd never seen anything like it. Trees blown down like matchsticks. Utter devastation. At that point in time Mother Nature had yet to go, much, into recovery mode.
The access at that time ended at an overlook where you could see into the volcano and look down on the remnants of Spirit Lake, that being where Harry Truman was last seen.
That is the view of Spirit Lake we are looking at in the picture.
It would be about 8 more years before I saw Mt. St. Helens, again, up close. By then the area had been turned into a National Monument. A feat of highway engineering had built a road in from the west side. 5 very well done Visitor's Centers had been built, along with a lot of other amenities. Mt. St. Helens had become a major tourist attraction.
The final Visitor's Center is at the location where David Johnston radioed, "Vancouver, this is it," from his location on Coldwater Ridge. This is the best of the Visitor's Centers, designed to blend into the landscape. It is very close to the volcano.
Mt. St. Helens was the deadliest, most economically destructive volcanic event in American history. 57 people were killed, 47 bridges, 250 homes, 185 miles of highway and 15 miles of railway were destroyed.
A couple days ago I blogged on my Washington Blog about how it seemed impossible that it could be 30 years since Mt. St. Helens blew her top. On that day had you told me that 30 years later I would be doing this thing called blogging about that day, and doing so from Texas, I would not have been able to imagine what could cause such a scenario.
Below is a YouTube video of Dan Rather and CBS news covering the Mt. St. Helens disaster a few days after the eruption. Looking at how dated this video is, it makes 30 years easier to believe....
