Mount St. Helens: America’s Deadliest Eruption

My mom was 11 during this eruption and living near Portland; we have a collected vial of ash from the eruption.

When you consider the 57 dead and you consider the amount of energy released that day, it's a success. A study done much later revealed that if no measures had been taken the death toll would have only risen to the 400 mark based on previous visitation and traffic patterns.

I’m not certain where you are getting your info from. There were more than 3 people in the exclusion zone and if it was later that day it would have been far higher. Yes she gave permission to enter the red zone but after extreme pressure from the homeowners.

Mt. St. Helens pre-eruption was 9,677 feet tall, not 1,300. ✌🏻🏔️

such a self loving nit!

Mt. St Helens was a Stratovolcano. Due to its location, we still can't sleep on her.

The smaller explosion on March 27th was the same day as my Aunt Helen’s 16th birthday 😂

"14 thousand years ago... long before human civilization ever emerged" bold claim, cotton

It wouldn’t have been so tragic if it didn’t erupt out the side of the volcano. Nobody saw that coming.

OK so my mother passed in 1979, I was 12 years old and I was feeling very despondent. And then I saw Mount Saint Helens erupt shortly thereafter, and I thought it was the end of the world. However, that was not the case, it was the beginning of a new world, a new world for me too. I was fortunate enough in my 30s to visit Mount Saint Helens and it was astounding. I have always blended the death of my mother Doris to Mun Saint Helens eruption.

my bulge grows 5 feet daily

If you have to ask if you’re too close to something, you probably are

St Helens is a beautiful mountain. I live in Skamania county and am within about 60 miles from Helens. It's an amazing place to visit to explore swift reservoir & the Northwoods x Cougar area. The forests up there are truly and amazingly unique. Some of the wild berry fields have natural strawberry patches that are the sweetest, best strawberries I've ever tasted!
The Ape caves are lava tubes which can be easily explored, I went up there a few days ago to do it again. The caves are absolutely incredible

Not sure politicians can't be blamed for good old fashioned stupid. Didn't exactly taken anyone by surprise, now did it???

As a 35 year old man, I can assure you I treated Simon's talk of an increasingly-growing bulge with all the maturity and seriousness that is expected of my age.

Mount St.Helens only had a VEI of 5. Much less than Krakatoa, even less than Tambora and infinitesimal compared to Toba. America is yet to (since prehistory) experience Yellowstone...which is classed as a SuperVolcano and is currently under close inspection as the ground under it rises and threatens to "blow" any time within the next 10 to 100 years (and possibly even sooner, say 5 years, to "next year" ...
When Yellowstone erupts, Mount St.Helens will be "a dim and dowdy" memory. Good Luck America. 😕🤢🥺💔🖖

My dad and aunts and uncles lives in Fife,WA when the eruption happened but didn't get "a lot" of ash only 6" they said lol but it was a blackout for a day I think they said kind of crazy. Mt St Helens is only about a 2 hour drive from where I currently live.

My dad always hated May 18th (his birthday) not because its a reminder he’s older but because of this event and it happend on his Sweet 16 and even though he was in Nevada at the time he had lived in washington for a while due to my and uncle grandfather service in the navy

Just to note the presenter's opening comment stating that St Helens was a 1,300 ft mountain is wildly inaccurate as I'm pretty sure it was closer to 10,000ft. 1,300ft is barely a small hill

I live just outside of Portland OR. I wish I could’ve seen the mountain before it erupted, but I wasn’t born for another 10 years after the eruption.

Can't say I blame the old man who refused to leave... at that age, and with his wife already waiting for him, maybe the thought of death wasn't terrible at all

Fiery Earth Farts is the name of my Frank Zappa tribute band.

I remember watching this on TV and thinking: "Wow!, that's going to blow out the side!"

I know this was two years ago, but I was there, and I have to say, yeah, OK, there were some serious screwups on the part of the state government, but there was also a LOT of human stupidity (because, of course there was). A couple other people here alluded to this, but let's spread the blame where it belongs. I mean, come ON. I was only 15 years old, but even then I knew to wonder, who the hell goes TOWARD a natural disaster? "It is only a volcano"??? Jesus Christ. I'm no genius, but everyone knows about Pompeii, right?? I mean, SERIOUSLY??

I remember the ash raining down after in Southern California. It was scary even that far away.

Trillium flowers are endangered but they are everywhere on the mountain. I love this area.

I grew up in the foothills and I remember the 2006 eruption. I've been to the new summit many times and did s&r on the mountain in my 20s there's trees that got blown down and stood back up so they look like weird J shapes at the treeline. It's a beautiful area today. I hunt this area regularly and have been since the mid 90s.

It's been more than 40 years, safe to say volcanologists and others have learned a few things since the St Helens eruption. Even now, the science isn't perfect.

The summer of 1980 my family drove to Alaska in my dad’s VW Camper. It was a great trip. We stopped internet to see Mount St. Helens on July 22nd when it erupted again 3 times while we were watching. The last eruption was high enough in the atmosphere that it was still in daylight while it was full darkness where we were watching. I’ll never forget my mother running to the Camper yelling “Let’s get the Hell out of here.” when the first eruption started.

This was all well before I was born, but my parents were living in Idaho at the time (still do)and they've told me the story of being blanketed in ash while they were out having a picnic that day

Omg Americans refusing to listen to science caused people to needlessly die? Gee where have I heard that before? Oh yea every pandemic since the Spanish flu

So...the geologists knew the danger beforehand (despite the government's incompetency) and still sent someone into a situation he was likely to die to get data? That's not heroic, that's just stupid. 

Anyone still in the red zone clearly accepted the risk of death, they made their choice, and so they are responsible for their own deaths. If you play Russian roulette, the only person responsible for getting shot is you. The tragedy is everyone else. The government's incompetency and corruption is disgusting but not surprising (it's America, after all). It's horrific they didn't even accept responsibility and tried to pass the fault off on to the victims.

Let's all just note that the logging did more damage to the environment than the deadliest volcano eruption in the US.

“Untold story” is that a joke…..?

I think it was really good, very well researched and I enjoyed it a lot. Keep up the great work!

Proof of how the Grant Canyon was carved, plus more Biblical proof.

Driving up highway 99 in washington the view of the mountains is a sight!

This may be a surprised but the Tsar Bomba packed more explosive force than this eruption

My mom's car turned Grey from the ash. It rained it mixed with ash. I was 3 1/2 year's old. The rain was gritty. We live in Arkansas. Think about that for a moment.

I was working at Coast-to-Coast Hardware and we had supply semi truck arrive to unload. We had to work with surgical masks because of the debris in the air. I was in Billings, Montana. We had basically a slight smog level. Later I went to University of Montana in 1984. They had about 1/4 inch ash.

not the cats!😭😭

my mom said ashe was falling here in southern california cuz of mt st helen

Boring

Volcanologists: (notices ur bulge) "Uh-oh~"

Noooooooo why the catsssssss ; __ ;

The Carter anecdote reminded me of a meme wave that happened after Joe Biden's visit to Kiyv and then to Poland, where people would caption his picture onboard Air Force One with variations of "The scale of Ukraine's devastation is appauling - Sir, we're above [enter any place in Poland that is stereotypically associated with poor infrastructure and damaged buildings]". This is like an OG of them all.

Dixy Lee Ray = Denny Crane

My family amd i still lived in southern Oregon when this happened. My dad's parents lived in the NC mountains. Several days after she blew, rhe cars in NC were covered in a noticable layer of ash. Grandma collected a Mason jar full and kept it til she passed. I sometimes wonder who emded up with it.

Simon always looking great <3