Yep I was coming down I-5 up in Olympia when St. Helens blew. I was 12. We made it down to Centralia and had to detour out to the coast to make it down to Ridgefield. We lived in the area and dealt with the fall out and ash for months! My dad had a buddy that flew us over the crater just a few days after the explosion. We got some amazing pictures!

Wasn’t in the PNW, but I distinctly remember ash coming down and dusting my parents cars in Connecticut. I finally made it to the observatory a few years ago.

I was living in Dallas and recall ash on the windshields.

I and the family were in Roseburg maybe 220 miles South. We got some light dusting that could be hosed off will minimal effort.

I wasn't there during the eruption, but a few months later my family moved from Utah to Seattle and on the drive up we started noticing the dust and ash all over the place. Being 13 at the time I didn't really know what it was at first, but eventually we made the connection. I probably had a bottle of ash at one time, but it's long gone.

Yep, I lived in Olympia WA. Remember the ash covering everything.

I was enroute homeward from a seminar the preceding day in PDX, on I-5 near Albany when it blew. There was a mild ash layer on entire homestead further south by next morning.
Compared to downwind places we were lucky.

In the mid-70s attended an institution that had some classrooms facing towards the glorious sight of Mt. St. Helen. It was not unusual for prominent double- and even triple stacked lentiform clouds above the pre-eruption summit of the mountain. The weather guys would explain now & then how that formation occurred. I have never observed them like that elsewhere.

Yes lived in Edmonds about 100 miles as a crow flies. Heard a boom in the morning i yelled at my brother though he hit the wall with a basketball
trying to wake me up.
He was still asleep. About an hour later my mom told us the mountain blew.

My wife and I were living in Ellensburg, Washington at the time. We had a few inches of ash on the ground.

In my younger days I often water skied at Spirit Lake and hiked in the Mount Margaret backcountry.

Beautiful place.

Silent

I had just finished a semester at Colorado State and was staying at my mother’s place nearby. The ash eventually got there and dusted everything. Less than a month later, I was at McChord AFB in Tacoma for AFROTC field training. The base is about 75 miles north of the volcano. As cadets, we were supposed to keep our barracks rooms spic and span. We would leave in the morning with everything spotless - by the time we got back to our rooms in the evening, you could write your name in the dust on the desk. We were told the Air Force had issued a “waiver” for volcanic ash in our rooms!

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Old Vark WSO,

Wishfull thinker - thanks for sharing.

I read of the eruption, but wasn't in Seattle.

In '85, met a nice couple on Oahu, who regaled me with their hiking experience.

When I moved to Seattle, I learned of a lot more first hand stories, from the GF and neighbors ... up close experience with 9/11 had something to do with that fascination.

Lived in Olympia at the time. We were at the beach, suddenly all the clams disappeared. Next couple of weeks were interesting. Police cars were outfitted big truck type air filter cannisters mounted sideways on the front bumpers.

I remember seeing ash in West Glacier, MT a few weeks after. As a child I figured Mt St Helens must be just down the road from West Glacier.

Was living in Spokane as a kid, and we were at the Fairchild AFB Open House/air show. As I remember, all of a sudden, aircraft started disappearing, either taking off or into hangers.

They announced the base was closing, and we were in the line of cars heading out when it just suddenly got dark in the middle of the afternoon, like it was late evening.

I remember the ash, the masks, and having to walk to the store because you weren’t supposed to drive. Shoveling ash like it was snow... and for years after, any time you dug down you would find a layer of ash.

The last year I’ve wondered how that all would have been handled today.

Bill R

We were living on Puget Sound when that thing blew. Funny thing is, we flew back to Missouri about three weeks after she blew and they had more ash there than we did living less than an hour away from the mountain.

LBJ was on the mountain the day before, is my memory. His birthday is 5-18

I was working at the top of a telephone pole in Northwest Oregon directly west of Mt. St. Helens. The ground crew had a radio on. When they announced it was erupting, I turned and watched it go up. Fortunately for me, most of the ash went northeast.

I worked for a government agency at the time. We had lots of two-way radio microphones stuck open from the ash. Two supervisors were driving from Portland to Salem and their microphone stuck open. They were discussing their new female manager and what they would like to do to her. They were fired when they got to Salem.

There was a run on pantyhose to cover the air intake on vehicles.

Was serving on Ft. Lewis at the time. Remember waking up that Sunday morning and walking outside to what looked like it was snowing with ash over everything. I ran inside yelling to the wife "Turn on the news!" Sure enough, it blew. We drove around trying to find a vantage point where we could maybe see the plume, but no luck as it was just too thick to see anything. I do remember having to replace the air filter often, and the cleanup just seemed to be a 24/7 affair for a long while after.

As I was in the 75th Rangers, I was hoping some crafty scheduling would be done to do some cool training where we'd be helo'd near the area for a good look, but it never happened.

When it all was over and roads opened, we did make it out there and were just flat out amazed at the destruction and how far it spread. We still go back every few years and see the recovery progress.

I was living in SE Portland at the time and around 11:00am the ash was coming down hard enough that it got dark enough to turn the street lights on. It was pretty weird in that it looked like it was snowing but the temperature was in the mid 70's.

One of my college roommates, Bruce Faddis, was killed in the explosion that day. He was friends with Harry Truman and had a couple of days off so he decided to go visit his friend at Spirit Lake. They never found his car or his body.

We lived in Federal Way at the time, I was 16. We had ash, though not the nightmare that eastern Washington did. I was amazed at the fact the whole world was interested in our backyard.