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For months in early 1980, scientists, journalists, sightseers, and nearby residents listened anxiously to rumblings in Mount St. Helens, part of the chain of western volcanoes fueled by the 700-mile-long Cascadia fault. Still, no one was prepared when an immense eruption took the top off of the mountain and laid waste to hundreds of square miles of verdant forests in southwestern Washington State. The eruption was one of the largest in human history, deposited ash in eleven U.S. states and five Canadian providences, and caused more than one billion dollars in damage. It killed fifty-seven people, some as far as thirteen miles away from the volcano's summit. Shedding new light on the cataclysm, author Steve Olson interweaves the history and science behind this event with page-turning accounts of what happened to those who lived and those who died.… (more)
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The most compelling part of Olson’s book is his description of the eruption itself from the accounts of people flying over the crater, climbing neighboring Mt. Adams, or on the ground in the blast zone. Although descriptions of those who did not survive were, of necessity, speculative; those of the survivors were gripping enough to convey what it was like to be there on that day.
As a person who visited the blast zone just a few years after the eruption, I can never forget what I saw and felt. The mood was one of danger that surprisingly still existed at that time. Driving a one lane road, intermittently adorned by horns mounted on poles with signs warning to leave immediately if horns sounded, I was struck by the image of miles of giant trees on the ground all aligned as if a giant comb was used on them; by a thick layer of ash everywhere; by a car with its tires and paint burned away; and of course the formerly classical mountain peak disfigured almost beyond recognition.
The story seems to have a happy ending however—at least until St. Helens or one of its neighbors erupts once again—because environmentalists have managed to preserve the site for research and education.
The stories of those that perished are tragic. The passing of the buck after the event of the politicians was disgraceful. Nobody wanted to cry fire if the mountain wasn’t going to blow. Geologist were guilty of not communicating with decision makers with the right urgency. In the author’s opinion they should have also known that Helens was going to blow up sideways and not follow the more familiar pattern for these type of volcanoes. His take on the geology matters is pretty elementary and is more conspiracy than was necessary.
Main lesson here is that people are bad at risk assessment. Especially if the incentive to take risks is weighed against a potential disaster with no definitive timeline.
The type and time of eruption, perhaps, were a bit of a surprise, but the geologists, volcanologists, and other scientists studying the volcano clearly thought that there was a high chance that it would erupt soon - they just couldn't pinpoint an exact date or time. But there were clear signs that an eruption was looming on the future: numerous earthquakes in the vicinity, the "bulge" growing on the northern side of the volcano, and the jets of steam being emitted from Mount St. Helens. The problem was, although they thought that there was a chance that the volcano might erupt from its side (which it did - from the "bulge" area), the scientists didn't think that was the MOST likely scenario. They obviously thought it was pretty unlikely to happen, actually, since their observation points (including Coldwater II, where Dave Johnson was killed) were only about four miles away from that bulge. But an eruption? The scientists knew that it was quite likely to happen - but because of politics, big business, and basically never having seen this happen in their lifetimes, a bunch of protections that could have been implemented (and should have been implemented) never happened.
Speaking of politics and big business, the governor of the state of Washington at the time was obviously more concerned about logging operations continuing near the base and along the flanks of Mt. St. Helens, rather than the safety of the citizens. Large tracts of logging land - which were open, for the most part, to campers, hikers, fishermen, etc during the weekends - were never marked in the danger zone at all (presumably to keep loggers working during the week). And many of those people who were killed in the blast were just out camping, or hiking, or fishing, and didn't know that they were in danger at all. Most of them were following the posted "red" and "blue" zones and were avoiding those areas. Sure, there were a few like the infamous Harry Truman, who refused to leave his lodge on Spirit Lake and was eventually buried beneath the eruption and resulting landslide - but most were either researching the volcano (Dave Johnson), working there (the photographer Reid Blackburn, some ham radio operators who had stationed themselves along the northern ridges to warn others if the volcano erupted, the foreman who went up with his wife to check the equipment that day), or just enjoying the scenery or nature in general (some who died didn't even have a view of Mt. St. Helens).
The author takes a meandering view of the disaster, and spends a great deal on the history of logging in the area, which I found to be a bit tedious. However, the author states in the prologue that his main "goal" of the book was to find out why people were in the region of Mt. St. Helens on that day, and so to put the loggers in the region of that volcano, he felt the need to explain how the logging operations developed in the first place.
The number of causalities, by the way, would have been MUCH higher had Mt. St. Helens erupted on a weekday, with hundreds of loggers in those woods, many of them stationed very closely to the volcano. It would have been higher, too, if it hadn't erupted on a Sunday morning - half a day earlier or later, and many others probably would have been up in the region hiking, exploring, fishing, or just watching the volcano.
It's an interesting book, especially since the author explores the creation of the national monument and the driving forces both behind and against the creation of that monument. Some of the areas near Mt. St. Helens are still closed to the public nearly forty years after the eruption, being used for research (both the destruction and how quickly nature can "bounce back" from such a disaster). I've always had Mt. St. Helens on my bucket list, but after reading this book, it has moved several slots higher.
Unfortunately the book is weakest when it discusses the time after the eruption, and
Also, Sadly, like all liberal scientists,the author felt the need to mention climate change even though it has zero bearing on volcanos.
To get the full impact, the author provides an extensive history (maybe a bit too extensive) of the logging industry, the Weyerhaeuser family and ownership of the land. I learned quite a bit about the history of the northwestern United States. The portion of the book devoted to the explosion was riveting, but sad. Recommended to readers interested in volcanology, natural disasters and ecology.