There was some back story to this photo, but I can't find it. The climbers had been up for hours, summiting Mount Adams, and when they got there, they saw the explosion. A National Geographic photographer was on scene and took the picture. It was an amazing thing to see, not just the ash, but the mud flows. Jeff Renner, a retired Seattle weather person, was camped out near St. Helens. They had decided to take a break and go home, not realizing the event was imminent. Jeff said in an interview that had they stayed they would have been killed.
Our neighbor's trichocereus is on round two of the bloom. It's an amazingly prodigious plant.
It's windier today than it was yesterday and hotter.
This is funny.
Mt. St. Helens was such an event, most of my mother's six grandchildren clamored to see it, and so we did, July 1980. Then on to San Francisco and home.
ReplyDeleteI lived in Helena MT at the time of the eruption and the town was covered in ash. My sister who has asthma could hardly breath indoors. Really scary.
ReplyDeleteI've been reading about the eruption. People just don't want to believe it when bad things are happening. I get that. That is NOT how governments and those in power should act though. And people are more important than money.
ReplyDeleteI was living in Eugene,Oregon when it blew. Eugene got ash but not the quantity that was just north of there. I was doing maintenance work at the time but had no encounters with the ash. What was the name of that old man who refused to leave the mountain? I can see his face but have no idea what his name was.
ReplyDeleteThanks...for the memory.
:)
And thanks to Bob for that line.
Tom
His name was Harry Truman.
DeleteYup ... remember it well. Didn't see the sun for days. Watched a program last night on the next big one to hit that area. Scary stuff!!
ReplyDeleteliving on the Gulf Coast Plains in Texas it didn't impact us at all but it was pretty amazing that a volcano erupted in the US.
ReplyDeleteI remember that my parents had tickets to fly back east that next week and the flight got canceled because of all the ash in the air. I can't imagine what those climber must have thought witnessing that.
ReplyDeleteGorgeous cactus blooms.