Word: ashli
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...dust," said Willwerth. "It was surrealistic, a study in black and white, like a page out of an Aldous Huxley novel." Photographer Bill Thompson observed the effects of the volcanic cloud as it reached eastern Washington. Said he: "It was the bees that scared me, weighed down with ash. They staggered around like plaster casts of them selves, leaving wavering tracks on the dirty white blanket...
Clouds of hot ash made up of pulverized rock were belched twelve miles into the sky. Giant mud slides, composed of melted snow mixed with ash and propelled by waves of superheated gas erupting out of the crater, rumbled down the slopes Hiroshima, crashed through valleys, leaving millions of trees knocked down in rows, as though a giant had been playing pick-up sticks...
...speaking into his sound camera to record his impressions of the scene. Said he: "I am walking toward the only light I can see. I can hear the mountain rumble. At this very moment I have to say, 'Honest to God, I believe I am dead.' The ash in my eyes burns my eyes, burns my eyes! Oh dear God, this is hell! It's very, very hard to breathe and very dark. If I could only breathe air. God, just give me a breath! I will try the radio. Mayday! Mayday! Ash is coming down...
Crockett did live; a rescue helicopter plucked him off the mountain ten hours later. But Johnston was never heard from again. His campsite was strewn with boulders, broken tree trunks and ash with the consistency of wet cement. By week's end at least 18 people were known to have died in the eruption; at least 71 were reported missing and feared dead. Among them was Harry Truman, a crusty 84-year-old who lived with 16 cats at a recreation lodge near Spirit Lake, about five miles north of the peak. He had refused to leave weeks...
...populated area, the loss of life would have been awesome. Geologists estimated that St. Helens spewed out about 1.5 cubic miles of debris, a blast on about the same order of magnitude as the one in A.D. 79 from Italy's Vesuvius, which buried Pompeii and Herculaneum with ash...