WEBVTT 00:00:04.850 --> 00:00:08.110 Hi, everyone. My name is Carolyn Driedger. 00:00:08.110 --> 00:00:11.940 I'm a Hydrologist and Outreach Coordinator at the USGS, 00:00:11.940 --> 00:00:15.255 Cascades Volcano Observatory, in Vancouver, Washington. 00:00:15.255 --> 00:00:17.520 I'm happy to be here today, 00:00:17.520 --> 00:00:20.565 recognizing that Snohomish County, 00:00:20.565 --> 00:00:23.565 Island County are some of my favorite parts of the world. 00:00:23.565 --> 00:00:27.930 So even if I can only be there virtually, that's just terrific. 00:00:27.930 --> 00:00:33.900 Thank you to the Sno-Isle Library system for putting this together. 00:00:33.900 --> 00:00:38.370 As well as Liz Westby from the USGS, 00:00:38.370 --> 00:00:43.805 outreach geologist, who has been working hard to assemble the series of talks. 00:00:43.805 --> 00:00:48.140 A few weeks ago, Heather Wright spoke to you about the Mount 00:00:48.140 --> 00:00:52.320 St. Helens 1980 eruption and she pretty much outlined what happened, 00:00:52.320 --> 00:00:56.420 and she talked about the geology then and what happened in succeeding eruptions. 00:00:56.420 --> 00:00:59.840 It was just great and it was really 00:00:59.840 --> 00:01:03.590 nice also to know she was being seen by the hometown crowd, 00:01:03.590 --> 00:01:06.170 being from Whidbey Island herself. 00:01:06.170 --> 00:01:12.080 But today, I want to talk to you about Mount St. Helens in a little bit different way. 00:01:12.290 --> 00:01:16.700 We're going to talk about some of the events that led up to 00:01:16.700 --> 00:01:20.555 the Mount St. Helens eruption and influenced our response to it, 00:01:20.555 --> 00:01:25.475 as well as what happened and how that changed people's lives and people's professions. 00:01:25.475 --> 00:01:30.115 Then we'll go on to talk about further about some of its legacies. 00:01:30.115 --> 00:01:32.030 I'm going to tell you some stories about 00:01:32.030 --> 00:01:35.885 just a small fraction of people who took part in this response. 00:01:35.885 --> 00:01:39.350 That's really important to say because there were literally 00:01:39.350 --> 00:01:43.639 probably hundreds to thousands of people who aided with the science 00:01:43.639 --> 00:01:48.410 and with the search and rescue and 00:01:48.410 --> 00:01:53.260 other emergency management functions and coordination functions, keeping people safe. 00:01:53.260 --> 00:01:54.880 That was all really important, 00:01:54.880 --> 00:01:56.690 and maybe I'm not even mentioning some of 00:01:56.690 --> 00:02:02.880 the most important or most valuable contributors to understanding the eruption, 00:02:02.880 --> 00:02:05.645 but we're going to start with a small fraction. 00:02:05.645 --> 00:02:09.440 There might be some surprising backstories that you may not be aware of. 00:02:09.440 --> 00:02:15.080 I think I have a strong appreciation for the connection between people and events maybe 00:02:15.080 --> 00:02:20.660 in part because my father was a history teacher and he always impressed upon us, 00:02:20.660 --> 00:02:24.225 as his students and his children, 00:02:24.225 --> 00:02:29.300 that it was really important to understand the motivations and the particulars 00:02:29.300 --> 00:02:35.060 of the personalities of the time as to how they predisposed what happened in history, 00:02:35.060 --> 00:02:38.110 and so it's important for us to examine that here to 00:02:38.110 --> 00:02:41.675 understand Mount St. Helens in perspective. 00:02:41.675 --> 00:02:44.990 With due diligence, knowing that I'd be doing 00:02:44.990 --> 00:02:49.850 some talks and writing a fact sheet with some other people, 00:02:49.850 --> 00:02:53.660 I did some interviews in 2020 and 2021, 00:02:53.660 --> 00:02:58.055 even in just this past week with some of the people who worked at Mount St. Helens. 00:02:58.055 --> 00:03:02.825 It was a good time to catch up and to ask them what they had learned 00:03:02.825 --> 00:03:10.190 and how Mount Helens was still influencing their profession and their career today. 00:03:10.190 --> 00:03:13.595 You're going to hear some of those stories later on. 00:03:13.595 --> 00:03:19.390 We're going to start with what happened with a little bit about people and volcanoes, 00:03:19.390 --> 00:03:24.905 and some important things to remember about how people experienced volcanic eruptions. 00:03:24.905 --> 00:03:28.265 People have lived with volcanoes for thousands of years. 00:03:28.265 --> 00:03:34.390 Yet the response to eruptions remains really visceral and really complex. 00:03:34.390 --> 00:03:40.475 For any culture, whether it be the native people here in the Pacific Northwest, 00:03:40.475 --> 00:03:44.150 a volcanic eruption is a really big deal, 00:03:44.150 --> 00:03:48.025 and it might just happen once in a generation or two. 00:03:48.025 --> 00:03:52.775 That memory gets passed down in an oral or written form. 00:03:52.775 --> 00:03:56.570 It's also just a full sensory overload. 00:03:56.570 --> 00:03:58.460 If you've experienced a volcanic eruption, 00:03:58.460 --> 00:04:01.010 you know that there's a sight, and the sound, 00:04:01.010 --> 00:04:05.640 and the smell, and the feel of that gritty ash in your hands, 00:04:05.640 --> 00:04:06.810 in your boots, in your face, 00:04:06.810 --> 00:04:08.190 in your lips, and eyes. 00:04:08.190 --> 00:04:13.140 In particular, there's something really symbolic about volcanic eruptions too, 00:04:13.140 --> 00:04:16.280 about the magma rising from the bowels of the earth 00:04:16.280 --> 00:04:20.160 and the eruption being powerful and uncontrollable. 00:04:20.160 --> 00:04:21.690 I think pretty often, 00:04:21.690 --> 00:04:25.260 it's thought in some cultures that somebody did something wrong. 00:04:25.260 --> 00:04:27.320 What brought this eruption on us? 00:04:27.320 --> 00:04:29.185 It's not a good thing. 00:04:29.185 --> 00:04:33.380 But I think that the same visceral reaction that was experienced 00:04:33.380 --> 00:04:37.430 by early humans is probably felt by 20th century humans today, 00:04:37.430 --> 00:04:42.160 and there's a lot of approach and avoidance about volcanic eruptions. 00:04:42.160 --> 00:04:49.030 We see the Cascades as these gleaming magnets that pull people to their slopes. 00:04:49.030 --> 00:04:54.295 There's a great little book, a little bit of an offbeat book, 00:04:54.295 --> 00:04:57.819 I'm not sure that I've ever actually seen it in a local bookstore, 00:04:57.819 --> 00:05:00.805 but it's by Alan Weltzein. 00:05:00.805 --> 00:05:07.990 He's a sociologist and he talks about how volcanoes are so important in forming 00:05:07.990 --> 00:05:10.105 the identity of a community and how 00:05:10.105 --> 00:05:15.445 each volcano has its tributary population that are somewhat loyal to it. 00:05:15.445 --> 00:05:21.805 He talks about on a more personal level how we have ascribed some of that, 00:05:21.805 --> 00:05:23.740 or we have appropriated some of 00:05:23.740 --> 00:05:27.650 that majesty from these volcanoes for our own personal selves. 00:05:27.650 --> 00:05:30.980 It gives us a sense of entitlement and maybe in the Northwest 00:05:30.980 --> 00:05:35.270 a little bit of a sense of exceptionalism as well. 00:05:35.270 --> 00:05:38.180 But if we're going to talk about Mount St. Helens, 00:05:38.180 --> 00:05:42.500 we need to go back because starting back in the 1950s, 00:05:42.500 --> 00:05:44.300 we could go back earlier, I suppose, 00:05:44.300 --> 00:05:49.265 but we'll start with USGS scientist Rocky Crandell, 00:05:49.265 --> 00:05:58.800 who is responsible for our understanding of the enormous magnitude of volcanic mudflows. 00:05:58.800 --> 00:06:00.290 I'll probably here on, 00:06:00.290 --> 00:06:02.285 talk about them, that's lahars, 00:06:02.285 --> 00:06:06.605 these big, chunky, murky, muddy, boulder-rich, 00:06:06.605 --> 00:06:12.090 gooey cement-like flows that advanced rapidly down a valley 30, 00:06:12.090 --> 00:06:15.300 40, 50 miles per hour and inundate everything in their path, 00:06:15.300 --> 00:06:17.315 which these are quite common we know. 00:06:17.315 --> 00:06:20.930 But anyway, Rocky was working on deposits. 00:06:20.930 --> 00:06:24.545 He had been assigned by USGS management to 00:06:24.545 --> 00:06:28.625 map the extent of glacial deposits in the southern Puget Sound area, 00:06:28.625 --> 00:06:32.310 as was his colleague Donal Mullineaux, somewhat adjacent, 00:06:32.310 --> 00:06:34.700 and they worked with their university colleagues in 00:06:34.700 --> 00:06:38.185 mapping these glacial deposits downstream of Mount Rainier. 00:06:38.185 --> 00:06:41.530 Here is a couple of photos of him. 00:06:41.560 --> 00:06:45.120 It's my right and lower left. 00:06:45.850 --> 00:06:50.270 Not everything was working out as was expected, 00:06:50.270 --> 00:06:55.455 and it seemed that instead of being on the valley sides, 00:06:55.455 --> 00:06:58.130 these deposits were all on the valley floor 00:06:58.130 --> 00:07:01.330 and it almost looked like they had flowed into place. 00:07:01.330 --> 00:07:06.005 Crandell was discussing this with other colleagues, including Donal Mullineaux, 00:07:06.005 --> 00:07:10.415 and a lightbulb went on in Crandell's head, and he said, 00:07:10.415 --> 00:07:15.085 he even wrote in his July 25th, 1953 field notebook, 00:07:15.085 --> 00:07:20.120 he had this radical idea that maybe this deposit was not glacial in origin, 00:07:20.120 --> 00:07:21.830 it flowed into place. 00:07:21.830 --> 00:07:25.160 That idea overturned the conventional wisdom, 00:07:25.160 --> 00:07:33.700 that this was actually a giant mudflow or a lahar that had flowed into place, 00:07:33.700 --> 00:07:36.110 and we know it today as the Osceola Mudflow, 00:07:36.110 --> 00:07:43.815 which flowed through time eventually down into the Kent-Auburn Valley. 00:07:43.815 --> 00:07:45.880 They published this idea, 00:07:45.880 --> 00:07:49.245 Crandell and Waldon published the idea in 1956. 00:07:49.245 --> 00:07:54.675 They were pretty proactive and very prolific with their publications. 00:07:54.675 --> 00:08:01.040 There's a 1967 hazard assessment and there was a '71 professional paper in it. 00:08:01.040 --> 00:08:04.465 1973 map, they really got into this. 00:08:04.465 --> 00:08:08.420 Before long, between this and some other maps, 00:08:08.420 --> 00:08:12.450 they were doing lots of hazard assessments. 00:08:12.550 --> 00:08:15.835 They were becoming known for their hazard assessments. 00:08:15.835 --> 00:08:20.910 Now, this was really the first geology-based hazard assessment in modern times. 00:08:21.730 --> 00:08:26.310 Crandell moved beyond data and hazards. 00:08:26.310 --> 00:08:28.730 This is really important because some of you might be 00:08:28.730 --> 00:08:31.955 familiar with how staid a government publication can be, 00:08:31.955 --> 00:08:34.220 such as a USGS professional paper, 00:08:34.220 --> 00:08:38.410 and they were very set and very conservative and rigid guidelines on what you can say, 00:08:38.410 --> 00:08:40.965 and how you say it, and how you present it. 00:08:40.965 --> 00:08:44.660 But he really moved beyond the data and even talking 00:08:44.660 --> 00:08:48.410 about hazards and he talked about some recommendations for mitigation. 00:08:48.410 --> 00:08:51.550 Then he went up to the National Park Service managers and said, 00:08:51.550 --> 00:08:53.270 "You have a problem here. 00:08:53.270 --> 00:08:56.750 You have a campground that's right in harm's way and you have 00:08:56.750 --> 00:09:05.190 the whole Longmire administrative facility that's really at risk from being inundated." 00:09:05.190 --> 00:09:09.680 He was really asking a new normal of us when he wrote these recommendations, 00:09:09.680 --> 00:09:12.455 to install a lahar detection system in critical valleys, 00:09:12.455 --> 00:09:16.310 and develop a warning and notification system to 00:09:16.310 --> 00:09:20.780 establish evacuation plans and make a plan to lower the lake levels behind dams, 00:09:20.780 --> 00:09:24.305 make a plan to restrict travel in hazardous areas. 00:09:24.305 --> 00:09:27.170 That was pretty radical and I think that 00:09:27.170 --> 00:09:31.740 not too many people saw that and took it too seriously at the time. 00:09:33.150 --> 00:09:37.630 Similar work was done at Mount St. Helens and meanwhile 00:09:37.630 --> 00:09:41.455 colleague Don Mullineaux was looking at volcanic ash layers there. 00:09:41.455 --> 00:09:43.420 The two of them were comparing notes. 00:09:43.420 --> 00:09:46.370 They were recognizing that 00:09:47.280 --> 00:09:51.760 some of the layers at Mount Rainier we're not settling right, 00:09:51.760 --> 00:09:55.870 and comparing notes, they realized that some of the ash layers at Mount Rainier were from 00:09:55.870 --> 00:10:00.190 Mount St. Helens and they began to spend a little more time working at Mount St. Helens. 00:10:00.190 --> 00:10:02.950 They were actually working simultaneously on these. 00:10:02.950 --> 00:10:08.575 They did a lot of work and came up with an amazingly prescient statement. 00:10:08.575 --> 00:10:10.990 They wrote a hazards assessment, 00:10:10.990 --> 00:10:13.615 and in February of 1975, 00:10:13.615 --> 00:10:15.745 they made this bold statement. 00:10:15.745 --> 00:10:17.710 Even if there hadn't been an eruption, 00:10:17.710 --> 00:10:23.035 this might have been the volcanic event of the century that this bold statement was made. 00:10:23.035 --> 00:10:25.945 That Mount St. Helens, 00:10:25.945 --> 00:10:30.460 although long dormant since 1857, little known, 00:10:30.460 --> 00:10:34.585 but prominent on the horizon in southwest Washington, 00:10:34.585 --> 00:10:40.165 will erupt again before the end of the century. 00:10:40.165 --> 00:10:46.840 That was just an amazing statement for them to make in 1975, 00:10:46.840 --> 00:10:48.745 that was February of 1975. 00:10:48.745 --> 00:10:51.970 They really didn't have any other volcanic activity 00:10:51.970 --> 00:10:54.535 in the Cascades to make them think about it. 00:10:54.535 --> 00:10:57.730 But it's amazing the difference that a month can make. 00:10:57.730 --> 00:10:59.830 In March of 1975, 00:10:59.830 --> 00:11:01.285 around three weeks later, 00:11:01.285 --> 00:11:05.620 geothermal output at Sherman crater at Mount Baker rose an order of 00:11:05.620 --> 00:11:11.110 magnitude and this increase in steam was obvious. 00:11:11.110 --> 00:11:17.845 A cauldron in Sherman Crater was enlarged. 00:11:17.845 --> 00:11:23.995 There was lots of gas release but to the chagrin of Steve Malone, 00:11:23.995 --> 00:11:27.445 there was no seismicity; he's a seismologist. 00:11:27.445 --> 00:11:30.325 But it was a fascinating place, 00:11:30.325 --> 00:11:32.410 and I like to think of 00:11:32.410 --> 00:11:35.770 that 1975 Mount Baker event as 00:11:35.770 --> 00:11:39.310 a little bit of a dress rehearsal for what happened in 1980. 00:11:39.310 --> 00:11:40.675 Little did they know, right? 00:11:40.675 --> 00:11:43.045 That there was going to be a performance, 00:11:43.045 --> 00:11:45.910 a chance to prove themselves. 00:11:45.910 --> 00:11:51.010 This was the first USGS response to heightened volcanic activity in the 00:11:51.010 --> 00:11:56.425 contiguous US since Mount Lassen in 1917. 00:11:56.425 --> 00:12:01.780 Also a real opportunity for scientists to come in, test their equipment, 00:12:01.780 --> 00:12:08.170 set it up, to think about what might happen and look at the possibilities. 00:12:08.170 --> 00:12:13.300 For myself, I wasn't working for USGS at the time, 00:12:13.300 --> 00:12:22.420 but our supervisor, Mark Meier in the USGS glaciology office in Tacoma was among that group. 00:12:22.420 --> 00:12:27.460 It just seemed like it was the glaciologists and the seismologist and the geologists all 00:12:27.460 --> 00:12:33.460 working together and contributing ideas and it was a great opportunity for them to bond. 00:12:33.460 --> 00:12:37.870 They also got a taste of what it was like to tell officials that an area, 00:12:37.870 --> 00:12:41.155 a very popular recreation area, needed to be closed. 00:12:41.155 --> 00:12:45.445 I think of that as a get ready. 00:12:45.445 --> 00:12:51.985 But then we move down to the Caribbean as another influence on the 1980 response. 00:12:51.985 --> 00:12:57.970 That was the events of Guadeloupe in 1976. 00:12:57.970 --> 00:13:03.940 It seems that this was a great opportunity for scientists around the world. 00:13:03.940 --> 00:13:06.580 Unfortunately, to be exposed to witness 00:13:06.580 --> 00:13:10.180 and pretty ineffective coordination in communication. 00:13:10.180 --> 00:13:11.874 It's not just my opinion, 00:13:11.874 --> 00:13:13.810 I wasn't even paying attention at the time, 00:13:13.810 --> 00:13:16.450 I was celebrating the bicentennial of the United States as 00:13:16.450 --> 00:13:19.495 probably you were as well if you're my age. 00:13:19.495 --> 00:13:27.640 But anyway, this volcano was being studied by multiple groups of scientists. 00:13:27.640 --> 00:13:30.625 There was minimal pre-eruption monitoring, 00:13:30.625 --> 00:13:33.520 just a really slow build-up of activity. 00:13:33.520 --> 00:13:35.200 There was some violence, 00:13:35.200 --> 00:13:38.365 people were unhappy with being kept out of the area. 00:13:38.365 --> 00:13:41.800 There were 20-25 scientists who were working in 00:13:41.800 --> 00:13:46.465 multiple teams and they were giving different scientific interpretations, 00:13:46.465 --> 00:13:50.965 really poor communication between these working scientists. 00:13:50.965 --> 00:13:56.120 They gave conflicting reports to the public officials. 00:13:56.120 --> 00:13:59.760 There was unlimited access to journalists. 00:13:59.760 --> 00:14:03.155 For the journalist they'd hear one thing and then another, 00:14:03.155 --> 00:14:08.305 and there was a controversial evacuation of about 77,000 people. 00:14:08.305 --> 00:14:11.080 Maybe by some people considered to be erroneous, 00:14:11.080 --> 00:14:16.300 because there was a misinterpretation of whether there was glass in the lava, 00:14:16.300 --> 00:14:19.480 but with further investigation and years later, 00:14:19.480 --> 00:14:22.400 maybe that was a warranted activity. 00:14:24.570 --> 00:14:30.790 With Guadeloupe, that event actually ended up in a huge investigation 00:14:30.790 --> 00:14:32.560 with scientists pointing fingers at 00:14:32.560 --> 00:14:36.910 each other and an outside group coming into see what had gone wrong. 00:14:36.910 --> 00:14:40.720 They said, "You really need more coordination and 00:14:40.720 --> 00:14:44.950 better communication among yourselves and with officials in the news media." 00:14:44.950 --> 00:14:48.180 We move forward in 1979, 00:14:48.180 --> 00:14:51.090 as the lead up to Mount St. Helens. 00:14:51.090 --> 00:14:53.145 There was a more apparent threat here, 00:14:53.145 --> 00:14:56.145 there had been an eruption in 1971. 00:14:56.145 --> 00:14:57.845 There was better coordination. 00:14:57.845 --> 00:15:02.380 It was actually a successful evacuation of several thousand people. 00:15:02.380 --> 00:15:04.930 Here we went to the other extreme, 00:15:04.930 --> 00:15:09.430 I guess one could think of it as the mama bear, the papa bear. 00:15:09.430 --> 00:15:16.090 We're still looking for just the right size chair for that medium size bear. 00:15:16.090 --> 00:15:19.120 Here they really overly controlled, 00:15:19.120 --> 00:15:20.140 at least in some opinions, 00:15:20.140 --> 00:15:23.350 but overly control the news media communication. 00:15:23.350 --> 00:15:27.730 This 1971 eruption had 00:15:27.730 --> 00:15:32.935 really prepped the population as to what a volcanic eruption could be like. 00:15:32.935 --> 00:15:35.290 There were some pre-eruption monitoring. 00:15:35.290 --> 00:15:38.455 There's this rapid build-up of activity and scientists' work. 00:15:38.455 --> 00:15:40.900 But the scientists all worked as one group, 00:15:40.900 --> 00:15:45.130 and so they gained consensus among 00:15:45.130 --> 00:15:47.920 all the different specialists as to what 00:15:47.920 --> 00:15:51.160 might happen and they gave one interpretation to the officials. 00:15:51.160 --> 00:15:53.365 It was very straightforward. 00:15:53.365 --> 00:15:58.315 There was good communication between the scientists and the authorities. 00:15:58.315 --> 00:16:01.330 There was a single stream of information and there was 00:16:01.330 --> 00:16:06.100 no access to the hazard zone and no access to the scientists. 00:16:06.100 --> 00:16:11.485 The news media didn't like this very much, 00:16:11.485 --> 00:16:13.810 in fact, one person threatened to sue, 00:16:13.810 --> 00:16:15.340 one reporter threatened to sue, 00:16:15.340 --> 00:16:18.800 and the governor summarily deported him. 00:16:19.380 --> 00:16:24.310 Maybe that's not quite what we need either at our next eruption. 00:16:24.310 --> 00:16:28.180 But get set. 00:16:28.180 --> 00:16:30.370 Let's move forward, in 1980, 00:16:30.370 --> 00:16:33.040 Mount Helens was a favorite place for recreation, 00:16:33.040 --> 00:16:35.845 the public and officials didn't really recognized the hazard. 00:16:35.845 --> 00:16:38.260 Perhaps they enjoyed it where because of that. 00:16:38.260 --> 00:16:42.580 The calls of Crandell and Mullineaux had not really been heeded. 00:16:42.580 --> 00:16:47.060 There was a lack of manpower, as it was called in the day. 00:16:47.970 --> 00:16:50.740 Not a whole lot of motivation, 00:16:50.740 --> 00:16:56.155 not enough to change programs, and divert money. 00:16:56.155 --> 00:16:59.065 As so often it takes a crisis to do that. 00:16:59.065 --> 00:17:01.810 Here's the status of volcano response, 00:17:01.810 --> 00:17:05.080 the Cascade Range as we enter the 1980 eruption. 00:17:05.080 --> 00:17:09.175 There was no place-based volcano observatories in the Cascades at all, 00:17:09.175 --> 00:17:11.544 minimal communication with public officials. 00:17:11.544 --> 00:17:13.645 Some had been done, but not enough. 00:17:13.645 --> 00:17:16.120 Minimal volcano monitoring. 00:17:16.120 --> 00:17:19.765 We had just isolated instruments out rather than networks. 00:17:19.765 --> 00:17:24.370 No valid emergency plan or communication plans or USGS 00:17:24.370 --> 00:17:28.555 science response plans, community education experience. 00:17:28.555 --> 00:17:30.820 We're pretty much scientists, 00:17:30.820 --> 00:17:34.090 siloed into our own scientific disciplines where 00:17:34.090 --> 00:17:37.960 the geologists worked in their own way, 00:17:37.960 --> 00:17:40.700 seismologists in another, etc. 00:17:42.240 --> 00:17:44.680 Put yourself back in 1980, 00:17:44.680 --> 00:17:47.420 what were the news stories of the day? 00:17:48.080 --> 00:17:54.960 It seems that there was a big rescue mission for the Iran hostages that had gone awry. 00:17:54.960 --> 00:17:57.120 It was actually a terrible tragedy. 00:17:57.120 --> 00:17:59.460 We had the Mariel boatlift, 00:17:59.460 --> 00:18:03.720 an influx of Cuban refugees that was out of control. 00:18:03.720 --> 00:18:07.260 All that season people were concerned with who had shot JR 00:18:07.260 --> 00:18:11.295 on the big Dallas TV program. 00:18:11.295 --> 00:18:17.835 With that background and when it's often dark days, 00:18:17.835 --> 00:18:22.920 rainy days as we're experiencing for some of this March 2021, 00:18:22.920 --> 00:18:26.220 the news that Mount St. Helens was doing something interesting 00:18:26.220 --> 00:18:30.105 was a welcome diversion and an exciting new drama. 00:18:30.105 --> 00:18:32.625 So Go. 00:18:32.625 --> 00:18:37.890 The first indication that there was something going on at Mount 00:18:37.890 --> 00:18:43.630 St. Helens was noticed by the Pacific Northwest Seismic Network. 00:18:43.940 --> 00:18:51.540 Steve Malone talks about how one of his workers saw something unusual and they just said, 00:18:51.540 --> 00:18:54.525 "Okay, it's one more earthquake to locate, it's probably nothing." 00:18:54.525 --> 00:18:58.965 Then finally they located it and realized it was under Mount St. Helens. 00:18:58.965 --> 00:19:02.970 Then a flurry of earthquakes continued and they began to 00:19:02.970 --> 00:19:06.675 realize that this might be something more than they had thought. 00:19:06.675 --> 00:19:09.120 Within a period of 24, 00:19:09.120 --> 00:19:12.135 36, 48, 72 hours, 00:19:12.135 --> 00:19:17.385 they went from no activity to major activity to 00:19:17.385 --> 00:19:23.400 putting instruments on Mount St. Helens and contacting all these different groups. 00:19:23.400 --> 00:19:25.905 I remember being in the Tacoma office, 00:19:25.905 --> 00:19:29.400 where we actually had a view of Mount St. Helens on the eighth floor 00:19:29.400 --> 00:19:33.750 of what was in the Pacific Bank building I believe. 00:19:33.750 --> 00:19:37.590 Steve Malone called our boss Mark Meier and said, "Guess what? 00:19:37.590 --> 00:19:38.790 We have these earthquakes." 00:19:38.790 --> 00:19:43.350 We all discussed it in the hallway and decided that probably nothing would happen. 00:19:43.350 --> 00:19:46.200 But anyway, Steve did contact people at 00:19:46.200 --> 00:19:51.150 the USGS and he talked to Don Mullineaux and eventually to Rocky Crandell. 00:19:51.150 --> 00:19:56.280 The earthquakes continued but the scientists were in Denver. 00:19:56.280 --> 00:20:02.730 They didn't have a full sense of what was happening there. 00:20:02.730 --> 00:20:05.550 It wasn't like there was email or Internet where 00:20:05.550 --> 00:20:08.985 they could trade a lot of data at the time. 00:20:08.985 --> 00:20:15.390 They were sedimentologists, they were people who looked at layers of rocky debris. 00:20:15.390 --> 00:20:20.040 I mean, they didn't use rock hammers, they use shovels for their work. 00:20:20.040 --> 00:20:24.400 They were unfamiliar with seismology and what this might mean. 00:20:27.050 --> 00:20:29.835 Steve told me that he talked to 00:20:29.835 --> 00:20:32.970 Don Mullineaux who was a very good hand holder, he is a geologist. 00:20:32.970 --> 00:20:34.320 He said, "Okay, I'm going to help you with this. 00:20:34.320 --> 00:20:37.530 I'm going to come out and work with you on this." 00:20:37.530 --> 00:20:43.275 I'm told that there was another plea too when it was said by the people in 00:20:43.275 --> 00:20:49.695 USGS in Denver that the seismologists were going bananas. 00:20:49.695 --> 00:20:51.885 Clearly something big was happening. 00:20:51.885 --> 00:20:53.895 Well, Don Mullineaux came out, 00:20:53.895 --> 00:20:56.010 eventually Rocky Crandell as well 00:20:56.010 --> 00:21:01.140 and there was just an onslaught of news media that met them. 00:21:01.140 --> 00:21:03.465 It was absolutely overwhelming. 00:21:03.465 --> 00:21:09.540 Fortunately, the Forest Service used an incident command structure for 00:21:09.540 --> 00:21:13.260 forest fire response and that framework worked really well at least on a 00:21:13.260 --> 00:21:17.505 local or some regional level for a volcanic eruption also. 00:21:17.505 --> 00:21:23.880 That included having a joint information center 00:21:23.880 --> 00:21:29.880 where they could all talk within their own lane of information, 00:21:29.880 --> 00:21:31.455 so that was greatly helpful. 00:21:31.455 --> 00:21:33.645 Before all this was done, 00:21:33.645 --> 00:21:35.940 the Mount St. Helens response would be 00:21:35.940 --> 00:21:41.590 the biggest news story that the US Geological Survey ever covered. 00:21:43.040 --> 00:21:47.535 Let's go to look a few personalities as we're moving towards 00:21:47.535 --> 00:21:51.705 the big catastrophic event on May 18th. 00:21:51.705 --> 00:21:55.590 USGS scientist David Johnston had had 00:21:55.590 --> 00:22:02.625 some harrowing experiences at Augustine volcano in Alaska in the year previous. 00:22:02.625 --> 00:22:04.980 When he came to the region, 00:22:04.980 --> 00:22:08.445 he was actually in the Pacific Northwest for 00:22:08.445 --> 00:22:13.305 a scientific meeting and he came with his conference clothes, 00:22:13.305 --> 00:22:15.180 wasn't really prepared to go out in the field. 00:22:15.180 --> 00:22:18.630 But when all this activity began at Mount St. Helens, 00:22:18.630 --> 00:22:20.010 he went to Steve Malone and said, 00:22:20.010 --> 00:22:21.420 "Steve, what can I do?" 00:22:21.420 --> 00:22:25.590 Steve told him that he could watch the seismometers. 00:22:25.590 --> 00:22:28.020 Finally, after a few days he said, 00:22:28.020 --> 00:22:34.350 "All these news people are just over the top and taking my science time. 00:22:34.350 --> 00:22:38.040 Could you please go down to Mount St. Helens and talk to people there. 00:22:38.040 --> 00:22:40.050 Talk to the news media there." 00:22:40.050 --> 00:22:43.110 Dave was happy to do that and feeling very 00:22:43.110 --> 00:22:47.970 powerfully motivated because of what he had experienced in Alaska. 00:22:47.970 --> 00:22:50.610 A young news reporter, 00:22:50.610 --> 00:22:55.035 Jeff Renner from KING5 TV in Seattle, 00:22:55.035 --> 00:22:59.770 was one of the people who frequently talked to David. 00:23:01.490 --> 00:23:08.265 Going back to Mount Baker, David Johnston and Jeff Renner 00:23:08.265 --> 00:23:11.820 actually came from similar parts of the country just not too far apart, 00:23:11.820 --> 00:23:16.830 Jeff from Wisconsin and David from Northern Illinois, 00:23:16.830 --> 00:23:18.855 they understood each other. 00:23:18.855 --> 00:23:22.320 At Mount Baker, Jeff had expressed 00:23:22.320 --> 00:23:25.050 a lot of interests in volcanoes for his volcano stories 00:23:25.050 --> 00:23:28.080 and Dave gave him advice on what to read and 00:23:28.080 --> 00:23:31.725 told him all about the different kinds of hazards that could be experienced. 00:23:31.725 --> 00:23:38.370 They build up a real rapport and I think that's a lesson learned that how 00:23:38.370 --> 00:23:41.310 valuable it is to train the news media who are going to have to 00:23:41.310 --> 00:23:45.435 stand in and speak for you on future occasions. 00:23:45.435 --> 00:23:47.730 David was a gas geochemist, 00:23:47.730 --> 00:23:53.230 you can see him using a COSPEC to measure gases. 00:23:56.480 --> 00:24:02.280 Lots of things happened, Heather went over a lot of the physical things that happened, 00:24:02.280 --> 00:24:08.460 but you know that the magma was intruding into the volcano, 00:24:08.460 --> 00:24:11.310 a bulge of the north side was moving outward 00:24:11.310 --> 00:24:13.830 and destabilizing the slopes and people were trying to 00:24:13.830 --> 00:24:16.065 understand what might happen knowing that 00:24:16.065 --> 00:24:19.080 there had been some collapses at Mount St. Helens before, 00:24:19.080 --> 00:24:21.945 but this, nobody was really sure of it, 00:24:21.945 --> 00:24:25.035 nobody had an idea of the energetics of this. 00:24:25.035 --> 00:24:29.430 I want to remind people when it is asked, 00:24:29.430 --> 00:24:32.985 why couldn't people predict what would happen? 00:24:32.985 --> 00:24:39.150 Imagine the state of the science back at that time where there had been 00:24:39.150 --> 00:24:41.610 practically nobody who had experienced 00:24:41.610 --> 00:24:45.870 an explosive eruption within the US Geological Survey. 00:24:45.870 --> 00:24:50.370 Only the very fluid basaltic eruptions in Hawaii, 00:24:50.370 --> 00:24:54.150 so there was just not a lot of experience for this. 00:24:54.150 --> 00:24:55.740 People worked really hard, 00:24:55.740 --> 00:25:00.240 there were lots of putting heads together to understand what might occur. 00:25:00.240 --> 00:25:08.340 But there we are on May 18th, 1980 at 8:32 in the morning, 00:25:08.340 --> 00:25:15.450 the north side of the mountain collapsed. 00:25:15.450 --> 00:25:24.225 We had a blast move over it and beyond it and faster than that landslide. 00:25:24.225 --> 00:25:27.480 We had a large plume go into the sky. 00:25:27.480 --> 00:25:31.425 As you see here in this photograph by Bob Krimmel, 00:25:31.425 --> 00:25:34.860 the glaciologist who was used to taking pictures of glaciers, 00:25:34.860 --> 00:25:40.420 but did well here with taking pictures of volcanic eruptions as well. 00:25:43.910 --> 00:25:49.110 It was an amazing personal and cultural seismic shift. 00:25:49.110 --> 00:25:53.295 This was the fulcrum in a lot of people's life stories. 00:25:53.295 --> 00:25:54.510 What was it like before? 00:25:54.510 --> 00:25:56.970 Where was I when this happened? 00:25:56.970 --> 00:26:00.645 How did I think before about these Cascade volcanoes? 00:26:00.645 --> 00:26:05.430 Do I still see them as benign and recreational opportunity locations, 00:26:05.430 --> 00:26:08.115 or do I see them as something different? 00:26:08.115 --> 00:26:12.000 It's been reported that a lot of people felt depression, 00:26:12.000 --> 00:26:14.910 a sense of real uneasiness, 00:26:14.910 --> 00:26:20.040 and being that we were still within a Cold War, 00:26:20.040 --> 00:26:24.630 there was a threat of a bomb being dropped. 00:26:24.630 --> 00:26:28.230 Some people told me that they thought maybe when they heard the boom, 00:26:28.230 --> 00:26:31.740 boom, boom, that maybe the bomb had been dropped. 00:26:31.740 --> 00:26:38.535 There's a lot of uneasiness and people feeling absolutely astonished and overwhelmed. 00:26:38.535 --> 00:26:42.075 I think it's summarized well in this newspaper, 00:26:42.075 --> 00:26:46.150 special edition piece from May 25th. 00:26:46.370 --> 00:26:48.390 "Until two months ago, 00:26:48.390 --> 00:26:50.835 in the memory of every living person at Mount St. Helens, 00:26:50.835 --> 00:26:53.400 shimmering across Spirit Lake stood as a ready symbol of 00:26:53.400 --> 00:26:56.415 benign and beautiful nature in the Pacific Northwest. 00:26:56.415 --> 00:26:58.770 Now the bomb mountain, 00:26:58.770 --> 00:27:01.200 never will symbolize that again to 00:27:01.200 --> 00:27:03.885 those who have seen the destruction that has been wrought, 00:27:03.885 --> 00:27:06.090 or to the thousands whose lives have been 00:27:06.090 --> 00:27:13.390 wrenched that bright and peaceful deceptive Sunday morning of May 18th, 1980." 00:27:17.330 --> 00:27:20.475 Now, among many people, 00:27:20.475 --> 00:27:24.675 emergency managers and scientists and the public, 00:27:24.675 --> 00:27:30.719 the mood - amazement, shock, 00:27:30.719 --> 00:27:34.605 sadness, that there was much work to be done. 00:27:34.605 --> 00:27:38.560 We knew that there were more eruptions to come. 00:27:40.010 --> 00:27:49.240 At that time the Forest Service was running flights 24 hours a day over the volcano. 00:27:50.870 --> 00:27:54.600 I will tell you later about my experience and what motivated 00:27:54.600 --> 00:27:57.540 me to work with volcanoes further in USGS. 00:27:57.540 --> 00:28:01.930 But anyway, I'll just say I had a chance to fly in one of those night flights. 00:28:02.210 --> 00:28:06.405 It was a very eerie experience, 00:28:06.405 --> 00:28:09.870 you couldn't recognize any part of the terrain even though I 00:28:09.870 --> 00:28:14.110 was somewhat familiar with the northern side of the mountain. 00:28:14.480 --> 00:28:19.260 But we knew we had to get back to work and that wasn't easy. 00:28:19.260 --> 00:28:24.560 I can tell you it was not an easy place to work either because dust - volcanic ash was 00:28:24.560 --> 00:28:26.840 everywhere and volcanic ash of course is 00:28:26.840 --> 00:28:31.310 just these tiny little fragments of broken volcanic rock. 00:28:31.310 --> 00:28:34.920 It's very abrasive and it gets 00:28:34.920 --> 00:28:37.560 into all your facial parts 00:28:37.560 --> 00:28:40.740 and your boots and it destroys your camera and your eyeglasses. 00:28:40.740 --> 00:28:46.320 It was also just very disorienting to work there where this had changed. 00:28:46.320 --> 00:28:50.250 You were still so much in awe let alone having to 00:28:50.250 --> 00:28:52.290 do the scientific work but we had to move on and we 00:28:52.290 --> 00:28:54.855 had just lost a colleague David Johnston, 00:28:54.855 --> 00:29:01.980 when the blast overtook him at a place called Coldwater II. 00:29:01.980 --> 00:29:05.010 Mount St. Helens became somewhat of 00:29:05.010 --> 00:29:09.310 a master teacher and an ideal lab for volcano studies. 00:29:12.470 --> 00:29:18.720 Really, I put this in the past tense but monitoring the volcano and analysis of 00:29:18.720 --> 00:29:22.740 deposits has led to so many new insights that were 00:29:22.740 --> 00:29:28.170 applicable in the Cascades and at volcanoes around the world. 00:29:28.170 --> 00:29:35.985 The USGS founded the Cascades Volcano Observatory in 1982. 00:29:35.985 --> 00:29:39.765 We're still in Vancouver at a different location than originally. 00:29:39.765 --> 00:29:45.430 We have 80 some employees there now working on the Cascade Range. 00:29:46.130 --> 00:29:53.175 Necessity has bred much cross-pollination among these scientific disciplines. 00:29:53.175 --> 00:29:57.945 We had people like the stream gager on the left and seismologist 00:29:57.945 --> 00:30:02.475 trying to understand their respective cultures and terminology. 00:30:02.475 --> 00:30:08.710 We had people like Rick Hoblitt here in the lower left-hand corner, 00:30:09.350 --> 00:30:12.344 and a picture by Bill Rose actually, 00:30:12.344 --> 00:30:16.545 Michigan Tech, they're all looking at a pyroclastic flow there. 00:30:16.545 --> 00:30:19.545 Then people who were doing surveying, 00:30:19.545 --> 00:30:26.175 so they all had come to an understanding that all of them had something to give to the 00:30:26.175 --> 00:30:29.820 other to put the entire three-dimensional puzzle 00:30:29.820 --> 00:30:32.685 together of the story of Mount St. Helens, 00:30:32.685 --> 00:30:36.460 and to understand what was going to happen next. 00:30:38.060 --> 00:30:44.175 Local residents and the world gained a big profound appreciation for 00:30:44.175 --> 00:30:52.185 the destructive power of volcanoes as seen in this destroyed bridge over the Toutle River. 00:30:52.185 --> 00:31:00.995 Volcanic ash is recognized as a long-term hazard on the ground and to aviation. 00:31:00.995 --> 00:31:03.770 The first ever health studies of it began in 00:31:03.770 --> 00:31:07.090 eastern Washington and later expanded worldwide. 00:31:07.090 --> 00:31:12.630 Dredging the sediment from downstream rivers continues intermittently even today. 00:31:12.630 --> 00:31:16.515 Of course the big question is; what do we do with all that volcanic ash? 00:31:16.515 --> 00:31:20.850 Those of us in southwest Washington are used to looking at big piles of ash along 00:31:20.850 --> 00:31:25.620 I-5 as well as recognizing that the foundation of the Three Rivers Mall in Longview, 00:31:25.620 --> 00:31:28.755 and other areas are built up from that ash. 00:31:28.755 --> 00:31:33.150 The same thing happened in eastern Washington where volcanic ash was 00:31:33.150 --> 00:31:38.160 cleaned up and it was buried basically, 00:31:38.160 --> 00:31:46.170 put into excess wetlands and covered with soil and made into parks and ballfields. 00:31:46.170 --> 00:31:50.310 I should mention that on the right there you see the picture of the dredging, 00:31:50.310 --> 00:31:52.965 they're actually dredging lahar sediment. 00:31:52.965 --> 00:31:58.050 Remember that the big lahars came downstream on that day, 00:31:58.050 --> 00:32:02.590 as well as there being a directed blast and a devastated area. 00:32:03.710 --> 00:32:08.010 The lahars leave a lot of sediment behind, 00:32:08.010 --> 00:32:11.400 it fills the channels and encourages flooding, 00:32:11.400 --> 00:32:15.239 it pushes the water out over the landscape, 00:32:15.239 --> 00:32:17.700 and it fills in shipping channels, 00:32:17.700 --> 00:32:20.715 so it's very important to keep an area dredged. 00:32:20.715 --> 00:32:27.820 Studies at Mount St. Helens and all the Cascade volcanoes led to a lot of new insights. 00:32:30.130 --> 00:32:34.010 People basically fanned out to all the Cascade volcanoes, 00:32:34.010 --> 00:32:36.785 and that work is still going on today actually. 00:32:36.785 --> 00:32:43.395 They mapped the rocky deposits and tried to understand like reading a book, 00:32:43.395 --> 00:32:45.450 looking at all the different layers, 00:32:45.450 --> 00:32:48.600 the different chapters of this volcano's history. 00:32:48.600 --> 00:32:49.995 How explosive is it? 00:32:49.995 --> 00:32:51.420 How often does it erupt? 00:32:51.420 --> 00:32:53.430 When did it most recently erupt? 00:32:53.430 --> 00:32:57.525 Where might be the hazardous areas in the future? 00:32:57.525 --> 00:33:01.900 Then we produced a generation of hazard assessments. 00:33:01.940 --> 00:33:06.600 A lot of new ideas and new technologies sparked 00:33:06.600 --> 00:33:11.310 the real revolution in volcano monitoring instrumentation, 00:33:11.310 --> 00:33:16.120 and that has really aided our ability to provide volcano warnings. 00:33:16.700 --> 00:33:21.705 One of the legacies of the 1980 eruptions is that, 00:33:21.705 --> 00:33:24.930 maybe even a few people who are even listening today 00:33:24.930 --> 00:33:31.230 were scientists or field assistants out there doing deformation studies, 00:33:31.230 --> 00:33:38.550 measuring the width of cracks to see how much the crater floor was deforming, 00:33:38.550 --> 00:33:42.760 and other people who were looking at the earthquakes. 00:33:44.390 --> 00:33:50.280 Using seismic information, earthquake information, 00:33:50.280 --> 00:33:55.230 and deformation information, we were actually able to 00:33:55.230 --> 00:34:01.710 predict some of the smaller explosions that happened after the big event. 00:34:01.710 --> 00:34:07.380 Steve Malone tells a pretty compelling story about the first time we had a big eruption, 00:34:07.380 --> 00:34:10.695 I guess it might have been the May 25th eruption, 00:34:10.695 --> 00:34:14.730 where they saw these little extra wiggles on 00:34:14.730 --> 00:34:19.920 the recorders, just before the explosion happened. 00:34:19.920 --> 00:34:23.505 Then later on, I think it was June 12th, 00:34:23.505 --> 00:34:25.965 he's like, "There are those wiggles again. 00:34:25.965 --> 00:34:29.925 I wonder if they really mean something," another explosion. 00:34:29.925 --> 00:34:32.340 Then on July 22nd, 00:34:32.340 --> 00:34:36.405 he talks about how everybody was out on the field working at the volcano, 00:34:36.405 --> 00:34:40.080 but this time he called the new proto-CVO and said, 00:34:40.080 --> 00:34:41.190 "It's going to happen, 00:34:41.190 --> 00:34:43.140 we're going to have an event." 00:34:43.140 --> 00:34:45.050 It's really best told by him. 00:34:45.050 --> 00:34:55.250 But anyway, that's the evolution of how we learn and apply information that we learn. 00:34:55.250 --> 00:35:02.360 Now understanding volcano behaviors led to new types of analysis, 00:35:02.360 --> 00:35:10.350 and we are able to take this information. 00:35:10.350 --> 00:35:16.874 When we see that there's a threatening volcano that's perhaps going to awaken, 00:35:16.874 --> 00:35:24.180 for example on the left with Larry Mastin's Ash 3D model, he's able to input, 00:35:24.180 --> 00:35:27.750 NOAA weather data and show if a volcanic eruption 00:35:27.750 --> 00:35:32.535 happened at that time where the ash would fall and approximately how much. 00:35:32.535 --> 00:35:36.345 Then as Heather Wright showed during the last geology talk, 00:35:36.345 --> 00:35:38.850 we make event trees where we say, 00:35:38.850 --> 00:35:42.945 "If this happens then we have this much chance of 00:35:42.945 --> 00:35:47.970 this next behavior happening as well," and in 00:35:47.970 --> 00:35:49.860 that way we're able to have 00:35:49.860 --> 00:35:54.015 a more quantitative assessment of what might happen in the future. 00:35:54.015 --> 00:35:57.630 Of course there were people out there studying the ecology as well, 00:35:57.630 --> 00:36:00.180 this barren landscape has quickly transformed with 00:36:00.180 --> 00:36:04.080 this wonderful mosaic of new and thriving plants. 00:36:04.080 --> 00:36:08.685 Mount St. Helens has spread its new generation of volcanologists. 00:36:08.685 --> 00:36:11.730 They were about, I think it was 00:36:11.730 --> 00:36:19.335 around 500 non-USGS scientists who came and worked at Mount St. Helens, 00:36:19.335 --> 00:36:24.520 From, I think 70 different locations in the US and around the world, 00:36:25.670 --> 00:36:30.160 I guess especially after the 1980 events. 00:36:30.260 --> 00:36:34.335 Now that the Volcano Disaster Assistance Program, 00:36:34.335 --> 00:36:40.590 which was formed back in the 1990s, 00:36:40.590 --> 00:36:46.320 it's been to around 70 different crises worldwide and really strengthened 00:36:46.320 --> 00:36:53.350 the volcanic response in a dozen of different nations, I think I'd say. 00:36:53.570 --> 00:36:56.550 They don't go in and take over, 00:36:56.550 --> 00:37:02.250 but they help the people and they're able to get some equipment for them. 00:37:02.250 --> 00:37:05.700 It is run in cooperation with USAID, 00:37:05.700 --> 00:37:09.120 the Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance and it's 00:37:09.120 --> 00:37:14.010 a wonderful multi-agency program that has saved a lot of lives. 00:37:14.010 --> 00:37:16.710 Actually with our people going to volcanoes around the world, 00:37:16.710 --> 00:37:19.320 they are able to bring those new skills and 00:37:19.320 --> 00:37:23.535 the experience home to the US and make us a stronger program as well. 00:37:23.535 --> 00:37:26.070 Now there are many different trainings that happen, 00:37:26.070 --> 00:37:27.225 it's not uncommon at 00:37:27.225 --> 00:37:32.340 USGS Cascades Volcano Observatory to see people coming from other nations, 00:37:32.340 --> 00:37:35.625 building equipment, learning how it works. 00:37:35.625 --> 00:37:39.180 There is a program to educate people, 00:37:39.180 --> 00:37:44.010 young volcanologist CSAV program through University of Hawaii, 00:37:44.010 --> 00:37:50.130 USGS VDAP, so it's been a terrific experience. 00:37:50.130 --> 00:37:54.765 In addition to that, between 2013 and the present, 00:37:54.765 --> 00:37:57.930 the USGS VDAP has sponsored a series of 00:37:57.930 --> 00:38:02.670 binational exchanges and I think there have been roughly maybe 13, 00:38:02.670 --> 00:38:03.915 14 of them by now. 00:38:03.915 --> 00:38:11.640 We had this gap between past and future, 00:38:11.640 --> 00:38:13.695 I guess with the COVID happening. 00:38:13.695 --> 00:38:22.680 But this has been an extremely useful program where as scientists we get to travel, 00:38:22.680 --> 00:38:26.595 but the public officials who do the policy-making and make decisions, 00:38:26.595 --> 00:38:30.450 being motivated and inspired to prepare their populations around 00:38:30.450 --> 00:38:34.905 Glacier Peak and Mount Rainier and Baker and St. Helens and on, 00:38:34.905 --> 00:38:39.780 they don't have a chance to go find out what a volcanic eruption is really about 00:38:39.780 --> 00:38:45.060 because in the Cascades they are low-frequency but they are high consequence. 00:38:45.060 --> 00:38:47.610 We have taken them to Colombia, 00:38:47.610 --> 00:38:51.240 to Ecuador on one occasion, most of them to Colombia, 00:38:51.240 --> 00:38:56.730 and we have public officials like I see Lorraine Churchill there in the center picture, 00:38:56.730 --> 00:39:03.915 meeting with a group of students during a student outreach event in Colombia. 00:39:03.915 --> 00:39:05.550 Then I see people from 00:39:05.550 --> 00:39:10.470 Washington Emergency Management Division and different county governments as well. 00:39:10.470 --> 00:39:15.960 Brian from Washington State Emergency Management Division and Corina from 00:39:15.960 --> 00:39:23.770 the State Geological Survey and Scott Beason from Mount Rainier National Park. 00:39:25.370 --> 00:39:31.580 It's just been tremendous to see how they have become motivated, 00:39:31.580 --> 00:39:33.860 they become educated about volcanoes and 00:39:33.860 --> 00:39:37.475 what eruptions could mean for the Cascade Range. 00:39:37.475 --> 00:39:42.050 I want to mention also that in 2018 we 00:39:42.050 --> 00:39:51.405 brought Ecuadorians and Colombians 00:39:51.405 --> 00:39:55.245 to the Skagit River area, 00:39:55.245 --> 00:39:58.425 Darrington, Snohomish County in general. 00:39:58.425 --> 00:40:04.365 Jason Biermann, Emergency Manager for Snohomish County 00:40:04.365 --> 00:40:10.745 gave them a wonderful explanation of what the response was like at the Oso landslide. 00:40:10.745 --> 00:40:15.510 The Colombians, Ecuadorians who had experienced lahars had said, 00:40:15.510 --> 00:40:18.330 "That it is so similar to what we've experienced also, 00:40:18.330 --> 00:40:20.490 and we need to learn together about how we can most 00:40:20.490 --> 00:40:24.060 effectively deal with landslides that turn into 00:40:24.060 --> 00:40:27.210 these big lahar-like gooey masses 00:40:27.210 --> 00:40:31.950 and entrap a lot of people, so it's been a very profitable program. 00:40:31.950 --> 00:40:35.835 But not only that, now as opposed to before 00:40:35.835 --> 00:40:39.915 when we had very limited contact with emergency managers, 00:40:39.915 --> 00:40:43.815 we now have these interagency volcano hazard working groups 00:40:43.815 --> 00:40:47.025 that were developed back in the 1980s, 00:40:47.025 --> 00:40:49.860 as soon as people could get away from Mount St. Helens 00:40:49.860 --> 00:40:54.029 and start looking at their own home areas, 00:40:54.029 --> 00:41:00.105 starting with Mount Rainier emergency manager, Bill Lokey. 00:41:00.105 --> 00:41:07.170 He showed us the value of all working together and creating a coordination plan. 00:41:07.170 --> 00:41:09.510 As early as 1988, 00:41:09.510 --> 00:41:14.880 he had created a plan with other public officials and some scientists from USGS. 00:41:14.880 --> 00:41:20.850 He actually had a little exercise practicing an eruption of Mount Rainier. 00:41:20.850 --> 00:41:22.890 Everyone at the end got a certificate, 00:41:22.890 --> 00:41:26.625 I survived the 1980 eruption of Mount Rainier. 00:41:26.625 --> 00:41:28.875 What you're seeing in the picture here, 00:41:28.875 --> 00:41:31.410 I guess down at the bottom and I see Patrick Pringle there, 00:41:31.410 --> 00:41:38.550 some of you may know Cynthia Gardner and emergency managers from Whatcom, 00:41:38.550 --> 00:41:42.250 Skagit and Snohomish counties. 00:41:42.280 --> 00:41:46.520 Everyone's working together to get products put in 00:41:46.520 --> 00:41:51.095 place so that they can help educate their communities. 00:41:51.095 --> 00:41:53.300 In the top photo, 00:41:53.300 --> 00:42:01.145 we have Kirstin Hofmann in the city of Puyallup and a number of people 00:42:01.145 --> 00:42:10.280 working together during a school lahar drill in Puyallup, 00:42:10.280 --> 00:42:13.385 I guess that was 2019. 00:42:13.385 --> 00:42:17.435 At that time they were about 8,000 school students who 00:42:17.435 --> 00:42:22.070 practiced evacuation in case a lahar descends the Puyallup valley. 00:42:22.070 --> 00:42:25.535 Of course, we have the Orting School District that has been 00:42:25.535 --> 00:42:29.970 practicing lahar evacuation for many years. 00:42:31.720 --> 00:42:36.155 We have John Ewert here and we have Seth Moran, 00:42:36.155 --> 00:42:40.024 they were both our previous scientists 00:42:40.024 --> 00:42:42.965 in charge and I just want to say it's been terrific 00:42:42.965 --> 00:42:46.100 for us to have a lot of support from management 00:42:46.100 --> 00:42:50.765 to go beyond the science and make sure that our science is applied. 00:42:50.765 --> 00:42:55.085 Scientists, officials, members of the public, 00:42:55.085 --> 00:42:58.530 we've all been working together. 00:42:58.690 --> 00:43:02.480 It all began in the 1980s with Mount St. Helens increasing 00:43:02.480 --> 00:43:07.370 the research about eruption histories and the assembly of hazard assessments, 00:43:07.370 --> 00:43:12.740 and then going out and showing populations that they had a problem in their backyard, 00:43:12.740 --> 00:43:14.120 we should talk about this. 00:43:14.120 --> 00:43:16.565 Beginning of volcano hazard work groups. 00:43:16.565 --> 00:43:22.115 There's just an ongoing co-development of volcano coordination plans now, 00:43:22.115 --> 00:43:25.895 each one eventually being tested and revised. 00:43:25.895 --> 00:43:28.265 It's just a never-ending process. 00:43:28.265 --> 00:43:33.305 There's an ongoing development of volcano hazards education products, 00:43:33.305 --> 00:43:36.695 and updating, exercising of plans, 00:43:36.695 --> 00:43:38.750 on and on it goes. 00:43:38.750 --> 00:43:43.310 There's also a USGS alert notification system that is described on our website. 00:43:43.310 --> 00:43:45.245 You'll get the URL at the end. 00:43:45.245 --> 00:43:48.755 But this is something that we were lacking in 1980, 00:43:48.755 --> 00:43:53.795 but it does explain the different levels so that you have something objective 00:43:53.795 --> 00:43:59.975 to look at when we talk about what might happen at a volcano. 00:43:59.975 --> 00:44:07.535 Now, all that work just helped us tremendously in 2004-2008 eruption of Mount St. Helens. 00:44:07.535 --> 00:44:09.830 In fact, we had 00:44:09.830 --> 00:44:15.530 the Mount Baker Glacier Peak work group getting ready for a big exercise of 00:44:15.530 --> 00:44:23.480 the plan that we wanted to test in late September 2004. 00:44:23.480 --> 00:44:27.110 We were all set to go, but instead, 00:44:27.110 --> 00:44:31.460 Mount St. Helens reawakened with 00:44:31.460 --> 00:44:35.720 these smaller eruptions and there you see the explosive beginning of it. 00:44:35.720 --> 00:44:37.340 It turned into a dome building. 00:44:37.340 --> 00:44:41.210 Relatively mild, gentle, and low-energy eruption. 00:44:41.210 --> 00:44:45.380 But that event, it was just amazing 00:44:45.380 --> 00:44:49.670 because all the people from Baker and with the Glacier Peak area, 00:44:49.670 --> 00:44:51.140 came and they helped us, 00:44:51.140 --> 00:44:53.570 as well as with people from Mount Rainier, 00:44:53.570 --> 00:44:57.920 they all came and helped us with that response and it made it much easier. 00:44:57.920 --> 00:45:02.460 We got to respond to a real volcanic eruption rather than just playing one. 00:45:03.820 --> 00:45:05.900 I should say in addition, 00:45:05.900 --> 00:45:09.155 a lot of people in many agencies are involved, 00:45:09.155 --> 00:45:15.785 the policymakers, there are teacher workshops, 00:45:15.785 --> 00:45:17.899 and we work a lot with the news media, 00:45:17.899 --> 00:45:20.390 public at risk, park staff. 00:45:20.390 --> 00:45:25.040 We try to get everyone up to speed about what these volcano issues are. 00:45:25.040 --> 00:45:28.880 The fact that these are what we call active volcanoes, 00:45:28.880 --> 00:45:32.120 they're not erupting, but they are active because they have 00:45:32.120 --> 00:45:37.085 all the processes going on inside and underneath that lead to an eruption. 00:45:37.085 --> 00:45:40.625 There's a lot of snow and ice on them that when melted can cause lahars. 00:45:40.625 --> 00:45:43.670 There's potential for ash to the east. 00:45:43.670 --> 00:45:47.360 This is actually all around the volcano, 00:45:47.360 --> 00:45:50.030 but maybe most often to the east. 00:45:50.030 --> 00:45:54.560 This is like a never-ending job for us to work with everybody, 00:45:54.560 --> 00:45:57.380 especially with lots of changes in personnel. 00:45:57.380 --> 00:46:02.585 I want to mention also that with the teacher workshop at Mount Rainier for many years, 00:46:02.585 --> 00:46:06.910 for some reason, we had a lot of Whidbey Island teachers. 00:46:06.910 --> 00:46:07.930 I think we probably had 00:46:07.930 --> 00:46:13.720 a dozen Whidbey Island science teachers come to learn about hazards at Mount Rainier. 00:46:13.720 --> 00:46:18.455 We expanded that information to the Cascades also. 00:46:18.455 --> 00:46:24.050 Some of those responders of 1980 continue to train and support the younger generation. 00:46:24.050 --> 00:46:29.290 You can see Patrick Pringle, who eventually left USGS, 00:46:29.290 --> 00:46:32.830 and went on to work with the State Geological Survey, 00:46:32.830 --> 00:46:38.695 and then to become an award-winning teacher down at Centralia Community College, 00:46:38.695 --> 00:46:43.040 and Dan Miller who was a colleague with Rocky 00:46:43.040 --> 00:46:48.140 Crandell who later took over VDAP and responded to many foreign eruptions. 00:46:48.140 --> 00:46:52.760 Then Rocky Crandell on the right and probably one of Rocky's 00:46:52.760 --> 00:46:58.290 last visits to the field looking at the lahar deposits in the Puyallup River valley. 00:46:58.720 --> 00:47:02.750 I told you that I interviewed some people and asked them some questions, 00:47:02.750 --> 00:47:05.660 and we've got a few quotes from them, for example, 00:47:05.660 --> 00:47:09.170 a retired UW seismologist Steve Malone said, 00:47:09.170 --> 00:47:14.180 "Mount St. Helens forced the acceleration of new equipment use and analysis". 00:47:14.180 --> 00:47:17.480 He has a very in-depth and compelling story to tell 00:47:17.480 --> 00:47:22.100 about putting a new system online on March 1st that would telemeter data, 00:47:22.100 --> 00:47:26.000 but they didn't have the software to do the analysis of it. 00:47:26.000 --> 00:47:29.420 They had to still go back to the volcano and you rely on 00:47:29.420 --> 00:47:33.260 putting in recorders that they had to go back and visit to retrieve the data. 00:47:33.260 --> 00:47:36.095 They weren't seeing it in real-time, in other words. 00:47:36.095 --> 00:47:39.560 He mentioned that Mount St. Helens was just a career-defining moment. 00:47:39.560 --> 00:47:41.270 He'd always been interested in volcanoes, 00:47:41.270 --> 00:47:44.060 but this evermore so. 00:47:44.060 --> 00:47:46.970 He notes how we've improved the monitoring systems as 00:47:46.970 --> 00:47:49.700 a result of Mount St. Helens and how this has really 00:47:49.700 --> 00:47:56.060 accelerated our ability to do volcano seismology at volcanoes all around the world. 00:47:56.060 --> 00:47:59.510 Many groups, students, staff at 00:47:59.510 --> 00:48:05.540 the Pacific Northwest Seismic Network, USGS, university scientists, 00:48:05.540 --> 00:48:10.594 people in other nations all have worked together to improve 00:48:10.594 --> 00:48:15.485 our ability to collect the data, 00:48:15.485 --> 00:48:20.120 to analyze it, and understand its meaning. 00:48:20.120 --> 00:48:26.690 He noted that there's real value in doing exotic seismology. 00:48:26.690 --> 00:48:29.210 That is, earthquakes that are caused by things other 00:48:29.210 --> 00:48:31.970 than the normal tectonic shaking of the Earth, 00:48:31.970 --> 00:48:37.640 caused by landslides, and glacier movement, and deep tremor. 00:48:37.640 --> 00:48:39.710 Deep tremor he noted is, 00:48:39.710 --> 00:48:43.895 "That's what we're seeing with these, slow-moving earthquakes. 00:48:43.895 --> 00:48:47.060 Slow-moving quakes that we see from time to 00:48:47.060 --> 00:48:52.250 time under the Cascadia within this Cascadia Subduction Zone." 00:48:52.250 --> 00:48:57.890 This information, it's not collected just because it's interesting or fun, 00:48:57.890 --> 00:49:03.665 it's because it's really useful and leads to insights down the road. 00:49:03.665 --> 00:49:09.650 Retired Emergency Manager Bill Lokey told me that, "In emergency management, 00:49:09.650 --> 00:49:13.370 we can draw a direct line from the lessons that we learned at Mount St. Helens to 00:49:13.370 --> 00:49:17.539 our current volcanic hazard planning efforts at the other Cascade volcanoes." 00:49:17.539 --> 00:49:21.560 He noted that, "We learned the importance of monitoring volcanoes, 00:49:21.560 --> 00:49:25.564 and for scientists and everybody working together BEFORE an eruption." 00:49:25.564 --> 00:49:29.060 If you know Bill Lokey and you know how 00:49:29.060 --> 00:49:32.735 passionate he gets about talking emergency management. 00:49:32.735 --> 00:49:35.720 He kept telling me," Emergency management, it's a team sport. 00:49:35.720 --> 00:49:39.275 It's a team sport, Carolyn, got to do it all together." 00:49:39.275 --> 00:49:42.920 Mount St. Helens' response was so complex. 00:49:42.920 --> 00:49:47.600 It's been very meaningful and helpful to 00:49:47.600 --> 00:49:50.720 the profession of emergency management more broadly 00:49:50.720 --> 00:49:54.065 because it was very complex, it was long-lasting. 00:49:54.065 --> 00:49:57.740 It touched so many different professions and agencies. 00:49:57.740 --> 00:50:03.755 There was the Corps of Engineers involved in mitigation efforts, and scientists, 00:50:03.755 --> 00:50:08.540 and all different kinds of scientists actually, 00:50:08.540 --> 00:50:14.060 the Forest Service as the land managers, 00:50:14.060 --> 00:50:16.145 and Search and Rescue, 00:50:16.145 --> 00:50:18.860 and all different aspects of emergency management. 00:50:18.860 --> 00:50:22.580 A lot of what happened at Mount St. Helens has been documented in 00:50:22.580 --> 00:50:30.320 the literature of how starting from scratch, 00:50:30.320 --> 00:50:31.520 moving forward, and creating 00:50:31.520 --> 00:50:37.955 a complex and working emergency management inter-agency system. 00:50:37.955 --> 00:50:45.140 It's given us one of the examples of how an organic start can be, 00:50:45.140 --> 00:50:47.630 what it evolves to and therefore, 00:50:47.630 --> 00:50:50.780 maybe it's a good example of what's needed in the future. 00:50:50.780 --> 00:50:53.420 I like this quote by Les Nelson, 00:50:53.420 --> 00:50:56.510 the Cowlitz County Sheriff that, 00:50:56.510 --> 00:50:58.700 "The jurisdictional boundaries were no longer 00:50:58.700 --> 00:51:01.890 of mutual interest because we had mutual hazards." 00:51:01.890 --> 00:51:05.950 Retired KING-TV meteorologist, Jeff Renner, 00:51:05.950 --> 00:51:08.530 told me that Mount St.. Helens' reawakening and 00:51:08.530 --> 00:51:12.610 the ultimate eruption and the public's fascination in that ongoing story led 00:51:12.610 --> 00:51:15.790 the Northwest journalism to evolve in a way that really 00:51:15.790 --> 00:51:19.810 encouraged strong science and environmental reporting for decades to come. 00:51:19.810 --> 00:51:21.880 You might remember that there were 00:51:21.880 --> 00:51:25.900 FCC regulations of the time that said that you will talk about local events, 00:51:25.900 --> 00:51:31.000 and that certainly encouraged Jeff to talk about Mount St. Helens and others to talk 00:51:31.000 --> 00:51:37.255 about Northwest events and features of interests. 00:51:37.255 --> 00:51:39.490 He noted that, as journalists, 00:51:39.490 --> 00:51:43.660 they felt a really strong sense of responsibility to tell the story 00:51:43.660 --> 00:51:47.950 of the volcano accurately and in context, 00:51:47.950 --> 00:51:49.450 really understand the processes, 00:51:49.450 --> 00:51:51.235 and know what they were talking about, 00:51:51.235 --> 00:51:56.500 and to be worthy of the confidence of the scientist and our colleagues. 00:51:56.500 --> 00:52:01.300 He said that working with scientists at Mount Baker's steam events in the 1970s 00:52:01.300 --> 00:52:06.355 trained him and others how to work effectively with scientists. 00:52:06.355 --> 00:52:13.150 That gave a head start to their working with scientists in 1980. 00:52:13.150 --> 00:52:17.190 David Johnston recognized the importance of not just doing science, 00:52:17.190 --> 00:52:18.960 but of communicating to the public. 00:52:18.960 --> 00:52:22.905 So all those interviews done with Jeff and others were of value. 00:52:22.905 --> 00:52:27.450 Retired NOAA warning coordination meteorologists for the National Weather Service, 00:52:27.450 --> 00:52:29.060 Seattle, Ted Buehner, says, 00:52:29.060 --> 00:52:34.480 in 1980, we didn't even have a volcano code for aviators, 00:52:34.480 --> 00:52:36.880 so we just warned them about "dust" in the air. 00:52:36.880 --> 00:52:40.480 That's been changed. We now have a volcano code. 00:52:40.480 --> 00:52:43.345 The threat to flyways has been established. 00:52:43.345 --> 00:52:47.440 He notes that volcano alerts have been changed, 00:52:47.440 --> 00:52:52.570 the whole system has been changed so that it's a lot more effective and reaches 00:52:52.570 --> 00:52:57.955 people directly rather than having to go in some daisy chain manner of people, 00:52:57.955 --> 00:53:00.415 one person informing another. 00:53:00.415 --> 00:53:03.385 He notes also that there's a new weather station 00:53:03.385 --> 00:53:05.920 that was put in some time after the eruption, 00:53:05.920 --> 00:53:09.130 recognizing that they really didn't have enough weather stations in 00:53:09.130 --> 00:53:14.575 southwest Washington to predict where the ash would travel. 00:53:14.575 --> 00:53:17.845 That was a real coup to be able to get that put in. 00:53:17.845 --> 00:53:20.605 In 1982, Congress preserved 00:53:20.605 --> 00:53:24.250 a really unique landscape for the public use and future study. 00:53:24.250 --> 00:53:27.640 Susan Saul, from here in Vancouver, 00:53:27.640 --> 00:53:32.270 was part of Mount St. Helens Volcano Protective Association. 00:53:34.290 --> 00:53:37.750 The protection for the monument, 00:53:37.750 --> 00:53:40.720 through the creation of Mount St. Helens National Volcanic Monument, 00:53:40.720 --> 00:53:44.820 it was really a decades-old cause. 00:53:44.820 --> 00:53:46.515 It began in the 1930s, 00:53:46.515 --> 00:53:50.445 it was accelerated in the 1970s, and by 1980, 00:53:50.445 --> 00:53:54.000 she was leading hikes to Mount St. Helens area in 00:53:54.000 --> 00:53:57.525 March of 1980 so that people could get to know the area, 00:53:57.525 --> 00:54:01.510 love it, and then advocate for its protection. 00:54:01.510 --> 00:54:04.090 But it's great to have the national monument. 00:54:04.090 --> 00:54:06.655 We can build museums and do interpretation. 00:54:06.655 --> 00:54:10.930 There are fewer residents at risk having basically a park here. 00:54:10.930 --> 00:54:14.860 Now, there are many opportunities for visits and learning through the Mount St. 00:54:14.860 --> 00:54:19.089 Helens National Volcanic Monument and through the Mount St. Helens Institute, 00:54:19.089 --> 00:54:24.175 both of which I suggest you look at carefully to see the opportunities. 00:54:24.175 --> 00:54:25.450 At that time also, 00:54:25.450 --> 00:54:31.000 it has to be remembered that there were new ways of doing interpretation, 00:54:31.000 --> 00:54:33.790 and so many young people came to Mount St. Helens 00:54:33.790 --> 00:54:37.375 and there were very innovative exhibits that were put in there. 00:54:37.375 --> 00:54:39.685 Now I want to tell you, briefly, 00:54:39.685 --> 00:54:43.165 in a few slides, about what has motivated me. 00:54:43.165 --> 00:54:51.190 I had been working in a USGS glaciology office and I made a switch, 00:54:51.190 --> 00:54:53.110 came to CVO at one point. 00:54:53.110 --> 00:54:54.160 But what motivated that, 00:54:54.160 --> 00:54:58.870 and probably was the events of May 17th and 18th of 1980, 00:54:58.870 --> 00:55:01.465 and where I was aiding colleague, Mindy Brugman, 00:55:01.465 --> 00:55:06.445 who is now a meteorologist in Canada. 00:55:06.445 --> 00:55:11.260 There she is. She was doing a project on Mount St. Helens looking 00:55:11.260 --> 00:55:16.135 at the movement of the Shoestring Glacier. 00:55:16.135 --> 00:55:19.330 She asked for my help, I went down with her on the 17th, 00:55:19.330 --> 00:55:21.100 never guessing what it would lead to. 00:55:21.100 --> 00:55:24.085 I thought I was in for a day of fieldwork and surveying. 00:55:24.085 --> 00:55:26.905 But first, we went to Coldwater II. 00:55:26.905 --> 00:55:29.995 We went to Timberline and we went to Coldwater II. 00:55:29.995 --> 00:55:32.290 Here's Mindy looking at a camera that was set up there. 00:55:32.290 --> 00:55:34.330 This is the afternoon of May 17th. 00:55:34.330 --> 00:55:38.635 Of course, I had to look at the camera as well, time-lapse camera. 00:55:38.635 --> 00:55:40.525 Harry Glicken was there, 00:55:40.525 --> 00:55:43.570 he was directing the volcano from the director's chair. 00:55:43.570 --> 00:55:46.615 I think the mood was fairly light there. 00:55:46.615 --> 00:55:51.130 Mindy here examining the Laser Ranger. 00:55:51.130 --> 00:55:54.670 This is the device that she had brought down from 00:55:54.670 --> 00:55:59.230 the glaciology office where we needed it to make very precise measurements of glaciers, 00:55:59.230 --> 00:56:03.340 but it was thought that it would be helpful here as well, and it was. 00:56:03.340 --> 00:56:06.745 She showed how it should be used. 00:56:06.745 --> 00:56:13.810 David Johnston was catching up on some field notes at Coldwater II. 00:56:13.810 --> 00:56:16.585 David kept saying, "You know it's not really safe to be here. 00:56:16.585 --> 00:56:19.090 I know you want to stay here and get a helicopter 00:56:19.090 --> 00:56:21.850 over to the Shoestring Glacier the next day, 00:56:21.850 --> 00:56:24.520 but I think that you should go home and come 00:56:24.520 --> 00:56:27.820 back the next day," which was not what we wanted to hear. 00:56:27.820 --> 00:56:32.050 But we heeded his advice and we left. 00:56:32.050 --> 00:56:35.695 Here's one of the last shots of Mount St. Helens intact, 00:56:35.695 --> 00:56:40.375 about nine o'clock the night before on May 17th, 1980. 00:56:40.375 --> 00:56:43.255 That's our 504, as it used to be. 00:56:43.255 --> 00:56:48.190 The next morning Mindy and I attended a Sunday morning meeting, 00:56:48.190 --> 00:56:52.180 and at the little proto-observatory and then drove up I-5. 00:56:52.180 --> 00:56:58.540 Dan Miller was a mile or so ahead of us in his own vehicle headed for Mount St. Helens, 00:56:58.540 --> 00:57:00.880 and Mindy and I were behind him, 00:57:00.880 --> 00:57:04.570 and we watched in fascination. 00:57:04.570 --> 00:57:09.670 I can't say it was really horror at that point because it took a long time for 00:57:09.670 --> 00:57:16.660 the notion to set in that we might be losing some people with what was occurring. 00:57:16.660 --> 00:57:21.564 But we saw a large cloud form on the north side of the volcano, 00:57:21.564 --> 00:57:26.545 and it kept on expanding northward and going over the hills to the north. 00:57:26.545 --> 00:57:31.285 Then we watched the large plume form at the top of the volcano. 00:57:31.285 --> 00:57:33.865 We were stunned with what was happening, 00:57:33.865 --> 00:57:37.765 but we quickly headed back to the volcano observatory and 00:57:37.765 --> 00:57:43.000 began working with the news media where it was just lots of chaos. 00:57:43.000 --> 00:57:46.690 Yes, it is at the beginning of about any serious crisis, 00:57:46.690 --> 00:57:49.495 people not really knowing exactly what's going on. 00:57:49.495 --> 00:57:54.220 Dan Miller was getting reports from the field and he was writing them down, 00:57:54.220 --> 00:57:57.250 and Mindy and I were writing them down 00:57:57.250 --> 00:58:01.390 and passing them on to other members of the news media who called. 00:58:01.390 --> 00:58:07.915 A telephone was the only mechanism for making contact at the time. 00:58:07.915 --> 00:58:09.670 It was all very sobering. 00:58:09.670 --> 00:58:16.165 We derived a lot of energy from knowing that we just needed to push forward and, 00:58:16.165 --> 00:58:17.680 I guess, we were on adrenaline. 00:58:17.680 --> 00:58:20.660 It was one of those no-food days. 00:58:22.530 --> 00:58:26.455 Everyone kept saying this guy, Richard Fiske, 00:58:26.455 --> 00:58:30.700 is going to tell us how to do new news media correctly because he was 00:58:30.700 --> 00:58:35.590 at Guadeloupe and he was at St. Vincent and he's seen the two extremes. 00:58:35.590 --> 00:58:37.450 So we hope we were doing this right, 00:58:37.450 --> 00:58:38.830 and he's going to write a paper about it, 00:58:38.830 --> 00:58:40.750 which he eventually did. 00:58:40.750 --> 00:58:43.750 Here you see some books. 00:58:43.750 --> 00:58:50.200 There's a lot of pensive moods in those next few days working in that little observatory. 00:58:50.200 --> 00:58:56.320 There's Don Swanson and Richard Waitt who wrote the eyewitness account book. 00:58:56.320 --> 00:58:58.720 I'm not sure who this gentleman is. 00:58:58.720 --> 00:59:04.520 Keith Stoffel, who was with his wife in a plane ever Mount St. Helens when it erupted. 00:59:05.550 --> 00:59:07.900 I was living in Tacoma, 00:59:07.900 --> 00:59:09.100 living on Vashon Island, 00:59:09.100 --> 00:59:15.250 driving home up I-5 and watching the truckers taking things into their own hands, 00:59:15.250 --> 00:59:19.150 and they kept the traffic moving really slowly. 00:59:19.150 --> 00:59:21.370 They moved at a very slow pace, 00:59:21.370 --> 00:59:22.705 a few miles an hour, 00:59:22.705 --> 00:59:25.750 and nobody could go faster than them because, if they did, 00:59:25.750 --> 00:59:27.175 they would whip up a lot of ash, 00:59:27.175 --> 00:59:29.840 as you see in the picture on the right. 00:59:29.910 --> 00:59:34.000 That little car, little government Valiant, 00:59:34.000 --> 00:59:35.350 we called it Prince Valiant, 00:59:35.350 --> 00:59:38.785 and it took us a lot of places. 00:59:38.785 --> 00:59:42.025 Volcanic ash and lahar deposits. 00:59:42.025 --> 00:59:43.840 With those I-5 drivers, 00:59:43.840 --> 00:59:49.510 we have all had to adjust from viewing volcanos as benign to features that can harm; 00:59:49.510 --> 00:59:52.435 from seeing them as isolated, 00:59:52.435 --> 00:59:55.180 having just isolated monitoring to full networks, 00:59:55.180 --> 01:00:03.355 from scientists siloing in our offices to working in partnership to meet societal needs, 01:00:03.355 --> 01:00:08.735 from working in isolation from emergency managers to working and planning with them, 01:00:08.735 --> 01:00:11.190 even embedding in their offices sometimes to 01:00:11.190 --> 01:00:14.040 understand their culture and what we needed to do to get along. 01:00:14.040 --> 01:00:16.380 From news media avoidance, perhaps, 01:00:16.380 --> 01:00:20.985 the scientists to really encouraging the news media to work with us. 01:00:20.985 --> 01:00:25.990 From accepting an uneducated public to educating them. 01:00:25.990 --> 01:00:27.670 The lessons for us all, 01:00:27.670 --> 01:00:29.485 we all have to remain vigilant. 01:00:29.485 --> 01:00:35.015 As scientists, we need to establish our monitoring networks. 01:00:35.015 --> 01:00:37.095 We have the plan for it, 01:00:37.095 --> 01:00:38.640 with many different groups, 01:00:38.640 --> 01:00:39.750 for the next eruption, 01:00:39.750 --> 01:00:42.380 and never forget that it's going to happen. 01:00:42.380 --> 01:00:46.105 For budding volcanologists, I'd say that volcanology is about rocks, 01:00:46.105 --> 01:00:54.335 but it's a means to an end and that end is keeping society safe. 01:00:54.335 --> 01:00:57.570 To all of you who've witnessed volcanic eruptions, 01:00:57.570 --> 01:00:59.895 if you have a Mount St. Helens story, 01:00:59.895 --> 01:01:02.670 write it down for future generations, record it. 01:01:02.670 --> 01:01:07.720 For all, learn about the hazards to your community 01:01:07.720 --> 01:01:10.090 and inquire of the public officials about what they're 01:01:10.090 --> 01:01:12.835 doing in your community, about plans they've made, 01:01:12.835 --> 01:01:15.655 and plan and prepare your family and community, 01:01:15.655 --> 01:01:18.445 and, importantly, abstain from wishful thinking. 01:01:18.445 --> 01:01:20.515 Visit our website. 01:01:20.515 --> 01:01:22.600 My colleague, Liz Westby, 01:01:22.600 --> 01:01:27.700 and Wendy Stovall, and others around 01:01:27.700 --> 01:01:33.130 the Volcano Hazards Program do a great job with their social media posts. 01:01:33.130 --> 01:01:39.175 Checkout USGS Volcanoes on Facebook and Twitter and Instagram, 01:01:39.175 --> 01:01:44.410 and see our regular activity reports that come out every Friday afternoon. 01:01:44.410 --> 01:01:49.510 You can actually sign up to have these sent to you automatically if you wish. 01:01:49.510 --> 01:01:52.600 Thank you so much. 01:01:52.600 --> 01:01:56.650 Thank you to everybody who's out there listening, 01:01:56.650 --> 01:02:03.290 who participated in this eruption and brought us into the 21st century. 01:02:03.750 --> 01:02:09.415 Thanks again to the Sno-Isle library system for all your help in putting this together. 01:02:09.415 --> 01:02:11.980 Visit our website, and you can see 01:02:11.980 --> 01:02:15.580 the little fact sheet that was written this year for the big anniversary. 01:02:15.580 --> 01:02:17.470 See the breaking news there about 01:02:17.470 --> 01:02:22.640 a big Reddit session on May 18th as well. Great. Thanks all.