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...Mount St. Helens is something of a baby among volcanoes. It was born a mere 37,000 years ago, which is scarcely more than an instant in geological time. The mountain last erupted in 1857, when the area was an uninhabited wilderness. Last week's blowup ranked as middling, as volcanic eruptions go. But the people who stumbled off St. Helens' slopes, or were plucked to safety by helicopters, told tales that rivaled wartime survivor stories...
Mike Moore of Castle Rock, Wash., his wife Lu and their two daughters, four-year-old Bonnielu and three-month-old Terra Dawn, were on a hike along the Green River trail, about 13 miles north of Mount St. Helens, when the volcano erupted. "The sky turned as black as I've ever seen, and ash and pumice fell on us like black rain," said Lu Moore. "Then the air pressure changed, and our ears went...
...volcano is also producing fallout, literally. Geologists noted that Mount St. Helens is venting radioactive radon gas in greater quantities than any "hot" discharge from Pennsylvania's crippled Three Mile Island nuclear plant. Fortunately the gas has a short half-life (3.8 days) and quickly climbs high into the sky before it can affect people...
Volcanic dust in the upper atmosphere reflects sunlight away from the earth and lowers temperatures. The cloud released by the eruption of Mount Tambora in Indonesia was so dense that it made 1816 in much of the U.S. "the year without a summer." Nothing comparable is likely to happen because of Mount St. Helens. Meteorologists estimate that its cloud of ash will reduce world temperatures by only a tiny fraction of a degree Fahrenheit-a deviation that will be too slight for people to notice...
Probably the most lasting and pervasive effect of the eruption, outside the immediate area of Mount St. Helens, will be the monumental nuisance of the cleanup. Volcanic ash fell in amounts estimated at eight tons per acre in the Moscow-Pullman area of Idaho, 300 miles from Mount St. Helens, and 350 Ibs. per acre in southwestern Montana, roughly 400 miles away. The fine, gritty ash drifted into everything: aircraft engines, sewage and water treatment plants, tractor gears, washing machines. One official at Washington State University warned homemakers to use only detergents when washing clothes because soap might mix with...