Friday, May 18, 2007
The anniversary of my favorite natural disaster:
27 years ago today Mt. St. Helens blew. The kids and I lived near to Portland, and could see it blow, but were not negatively affected much.
The Yakima Gulag was hit hard, and I know one woman who went out and all exposed skin on her body was hit by little grains of hot ash, pitting her skin forever.
She was my neighbor in the old neighborhood, before I bought this house.
The lava dome is still building, and it's actually been in a state of low-level eruption since about 2004.
One eruption that the kids and I witnessed occured during the Clark County Fair, we were at the fair grounds with friends and all of us saw the cloud and decided it would be smarter to leave because my friends had an older car, and we worried the ash might destroy t he engine. As it turned out, the ash blew elsewhere, we could have safely enjoyed the rest of the day there. Still when you have an old car and there is a HUGE cloud of ash coming out of a volcano, you don't take chances.
The Yakima Gulag was hit hard, and I know one woman who went out and all exposed skin on her body was hit by little grains of hot ash, pitting her skin forever.
She was my neighbor in the old neighborhood, before I bought this house.
The lava dome is still building, and it's actually been in a state of low-level eruption since about 2004.
One eruption that the kids and I witnessed occured during the Clark County Fair, we were at the fair grounds with friends and all of us saw the cloud and decided it would be smarter to leave because my friends had an older car, and we worried the ash might destroy t he engine. As it turned out, the ash blew elsewhere, we could have safely enjoyed the rest of the day there. Still when you have an old car and there is a HUGE cloud of ash coming out of a volcano, you don't take chances.
# posted by Katja R. @ 7:06 AM 
