Lessons Of Mount St. Helens
On the site where the big mountain detonated 20 years ago Thursday—where blast furnace winds scoured a 250-square-mile area to the north and thick ash turned noon to night—toursists hike today, snapping photos as they step on historic ground.
But that’s just one aspect of the astounding transformation of Mount St. Helens, reports CBS News Correspondent Jerry Bowen. The site of the disaster that took 57 lives and caused $200 billion in damage in 1980 is today a living laboratory where 20 years of surprising recovery reveal nature’s healing power.
When the mountain exploded in an eruption equivalent to 500 times the force of the Hiroshima nuclear blast, it hurled volcanic ash 15 miles into the air. Within seconds thousands of acres of old-growth forest were scorched and leveled—trees were blown down like toothpicks. Tens of thousands of native deer, wild goats, elk and fish were killed.
Today, what was once a gray moonscape of rocks, ash and hardened mud has returned to forest land once again alive with wildlife and green plants. Little chunks of the former volcano lay all around the base of Mount St. Helens.
U.S. Forest Service biologist Peter Frenzen says the house-sized chunks are part of a natural puzzle slowly being reassembled.
"This jumble of old mountain top that’s left here—the surviving plants and animals, remnants of the blown down forest, are all key starting points for the next eco-system here," Frenzen said.
The biologist calls the cycle of destruction and renewal a come-back. Indian paint brush has returned with its bright red colors and the green of lone lodge pine pole stands out in contrast on a landscape once sterilized by the volcano's eruption.
One year after the eruption, a single lupine plant was found sprouting again and now a young forest of Douglas firs, noble firs and hemlock serves as forage for elk, which have also returned with other forms of wildlife.
But as scientists attempt to protect the delicate area around the volcano from being trampled by millions of picture-snapping visitors, tourism boosters say it's time to provide more access to the mountain.
They are backing a proposal to extend a highway that currently dead-ends in front of the horseshoe-shaped crater and are also trying to find ways to help the cash-strapped U.S. Forest Service keep its visitor centers open.
Scientists who study volcanoes, meanwhile, are using what they've learned from Mount St. Helens to provide early warning on future eruptions.
"It allows us to forecast when and if an eruption is going to occur," said Dan Miller of the U.S. Geological Survey's Cascades volcano observatory. "In the case of Pinatubo, our efforts saved somewhere between 30- and 40,000 lives."
Lives touched by Mount St. Helens, however, have never been quite the same.
The dormant volcano started erupting quietly March 27 until it roared on May 18, triggered by a magitude 5.2 earthquake. Volcanologists attributed the eruption to a buildup of pressure from gas and magma, which caused a bulge on the north face of the volcano.
Dark clouds of volcanic ash and dust from the explosion blotted out the sun over communities in Washington, northern Idaho and western Montana—areas virtually paralyzed for weeks afterwards from a seven-inch blanket of ash. Near zero visibility forced the closing of highways and airports.
For former National Guard helicopter pilot Chris Lane, who assisted in the recovery effort to find survivors, the volcanic eruption and ensuing disasters appeared more apocalyptic.
"It was like a tornado and a hurricane and a fire and explosion all in one event,"said Lane, who until this year hadn't returned to southwestern Washington's once-pristine ecosystem, known as the pumice plains.
Campers Roald Reitan and Venus Dergan remembered Thursday on CBS News' The Early Show, how a crystal clear day 20 years ago turned into a struggle for survival.
The couple, who had known about the impending volcanic eruption but camped 10 miles outside of a government-declared evacuation zone, were quickly swept up by the river that grew in intensity and heat. In minutes its temperature rose to more than 80 degrees and the muddy water turned from "chocolate milk to chocolate pudding."
"We didn't know what was happening. We didn't know the mountain erupted," Reitan said. "We knew something was hitting our campsite and all of a sudden the will to survive set in."
"There was no time to do anything. We jumped on top of the car and the mud picked it up," said Dergan, who fell into the river where she suffered a broken wrist and had quite a bit of her skin scraped off her body from stripped tree bark and logs rubbing against her like sandpaper.
Considered the most active volcano in the Pacific Northwest , Mount St. Helens has erupted for the past 50,000 years. It has been especially active in the past 4,000 years. Scientists with the U.S. Geological Survey who monitor seismic activity at the volcano every day, say it blows approximately every 150 years, but rarely with the ferocity of the May 18, 1980, eruption.
© 2000 CBS News. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed