Back on May 18th 1980, Mt. St. Helen’s became an awaking giant and caused chaos in the Pacific Northwest.  I remember my Mom running into my room and asking if I was all right? Thinking I had fallen out of bed. Later we learned that thud was the sound of the mountain blowing, 120 mile away. 

I found a good blog with some stories of people who had been caught in the aftermath of the eruption.

Here is a just a snippet”

“It was getting darker and darker by the minute and that intense cloud was racing toward us. Why was it getting so dark. The news had not said anything to us about it getting so dark. I really need to hurry so I can outrun this thing. I stepped down on the gas and accelerated to go as fast as I could safely navigate. I was in the middle of a desert with a very straight road road and I was cooking, pushed on by adrenaline. I was now about half way between Richland and Ritzville with nothing for miles in any direction. A look in my rear view mirror showed other people who had the same idea and were following my lead trying to outrun this monster.”

Here’s a good article on Harry Truman, the iconic resort owner who refused to leave the mountain. 

An interesting narrative of the events.

One economic side effect was artisians figuring out how to make sculptures from the ash, which you can purchase at the Pike Place market.