"When a young girl speaks...."
Teacup
tiicupp@aol.com
Thu May 18 16:20:44 2000
Twenty years ago today, in one of the most spectacular displays of Mom’s raw power in our lifetimes, Mt. St. Helens blew.  1,300 feet of mountain collapsed in seconds, obliterating Spirit Lake and sending wave after wave of ash-mud-debris down the Toutle River to the west, wrecking further havoc and destruction along the way.  A wave of air superheated to 600+ degrees Farenheit moving at 300 mph flattened millions of trees and incinerated uncounted forest animals.  57 people died-caught in the heat wave, suffocated by mudslides, drowned in the flood of debris.  Some of the bodies were never recovered-vaporized on the spot.  One was a cranky old man who would not leave his mountain.  Another was a young scientist camping at an observation post only 5 miles from the mountain, putting his life at risk in his quest for knowledge.*p*It was a bright, sunny May morning in Portland, 45 miles to the south, as I drove across the Burnside Bridge on my way downtown to have coffee with a friend.  The radio interrupted “Stairway to Heaven” to announce that the mountain had blown and all I had to do was look to the left to see the rising ash cloud.  A week previously my mother and I had driven up to the edge of the Red Zone (17 miles from the mountain).  If she had blown then, I don’t know if we would have made it out alive—people farther away than we were didn’t.  In the ensuing months, Portland would be constantly dusted with ash, causing almost everybody to sport some kind of dust mask, killing air filters and etching windshields, and giving endless material to the local wits.  Jimmy Buffet’s “Volcano Song” got lots of airplay (the line near the end—“Don’t wanna land on San Diego”--proved humorously prophetic for me).*p*Since that time, the scientific community—along with rewriting the book on volcanoes—has been continually amazed at how quickly the plants and animals of the area have recovered.  The pocket gophers, safe in their underground burrows, were back in business within hours, mixing the ash into the soil, making a fertile base for all the churned up seeds to sprout in.  Today the bunnies and the elk have returned to nibble on the purple lupine and a new forest of Douglas and noble firs is growing.  Mom has the power to destroy and She has the power to renew, and both are in truth far beyond our capability to really grasp.  I try to always remember this.*p*Below, if you’re interested, is a link to a rather well-written (IMO) CNN article on the mountain.*p*There is (I’m told) a local Native American prophecy that “When a young girl (Mt. St. Helens) speaks and Grandfather (Mt. Ranier) answers…” a time of devastating change will occur.  So far, Grandfather is keeping his counsel.*br*




http://cnn.com/2000/US/05/18/mt.st.helens.02/index.html
http://cnn.com/2000/US/05/18/mt.st.helens.02/index.html