Original subtitles

Its name evokes a murky memory in the

annals of history.

An important yet obscure event.

But for anyone who lived through it,

>> [music]

>> one impossible to forget.

Mount St. Helens.

The mountain in the great American West

that exploded in one of the biggest

volcanic eruptions of all time.

It was, you know, like uh somebody had

moved the mountain down. And it looked

like a prehistoric [music] landscape. If

there had been a pterodactyl, I wouldn't

have been surprised.

What happened on May 18th, 1980,

prompting this closely monitored volcano

to blow up without warning and kill 57

people, many of whom have never been

found?

What was brewing in the bowels of the

earth in the preceding weeks that

triggered this staggering explosion?

You expect volcanoes [music] to erupt,

but you don't expect mountains to

instantaneously fall apart.

>> [music]

>> My son David said,

uh "Dad, are are we going to die now?"

>> [music]

>> We'll take an up-close look at the most

well-documented volcanic eruption in

history, filmed in real time, with

insight from top experts and first-hand

accounts from people whose lives were

upended that fateful day.

When the sky is falling, you get scared.

And these are rocks [music] falling from

the sky.

We could see trees being snapped down

just like toothpicks. It was a surreal

sight. It's something uh

of a movie. The lake and all its water

were displaced, so there was a tsunami

on top of the eruption.

Those of us in geology geophysics knew

there were volcanoes that had erupted,

but you never believe it's going to

happen now.

Here is the massive Mount St. Helens

eruption, a disaster that spiraled out

of control.

Sunday, May 18th, 1980.

It's 8:00 a.m. in the US state of

Washington in the Pacific Northwest.

It's a very exciting day for geologist

Dorothy Stoffel.

The scientist and her husband Keith are

going to fly over a volcano that has

just settled down after an active phase.

It spewed black smoke and threatened to

erupt for 22 days.

But its fury seems to have abated.

A good time to take a closer look.

We remembered Mount St. Helens as the

place to ski. When we got there, the

mountain looked pretty black. It was

covered in dark ash.

We could see streams of water in certain

areas of the north side,

which glistened in the sun.

And I turned to Keith and I said,

"Keith, look at that. There's water on

the north side."

And I said to Keith, "That must mean the

heat is getting close to the surface."

At 8:32, 150 m from the summit, the

geologist captures these images with her

camera.

Extraordinary shots given what would

come next.

As soon as I took that picture

and was taking the second picture, just

click click,

but right beneath our feet,

the whole north half of the mountain

began to almost liquefy.

Oh my. [laughter]

This is the big one.

This is going to be huge eruption and

here we are directly above the mountain.

I say as a geologist, you expect

volcanoes to erupt,

but you don't expect mountains to

instantaneously fall apart.

Dorothy is unknowingly witnessing one of

the most incredible landslides in

recorded history.

3 billion cubic meters of rock suddenly

come crashing down.

The land isn't the only thing that

shifts this day.

The eruption displaces the surrounding

air as well.

A blast of hot gases bellows out at

1,065 km/h,

nearly the speed of sound.

It's too much for Dorothy's plane.

The blast was enormous.

Keith said to Bruce, "We have to stay

away from that. It might be 1,000°.

Bruce put the plane into a nose dive to

gain speed to try to outrun the blast.

And even at that, in the nose dive, our

little plane was only doing 180 mph,

and the blast was 600 mph.

It was like seeing the ground coming up

like this.

And at the moment, I thought, "Bruce is

going to nose this airplane right into

the ground."

Well, I understand crashing. I don't

really understand what it would be like

>> [laughter]

>> to be engulfed

in this blast cloud that's chasing us.

And I was thinking we weren't going to

survive. I thought of my mother.

And I thought, "I'm going to disappear

and mother's never going to know what

[music] happened to me."

The scientist never dreamed she'd get an

up-close look at an event this

astounding.

But now her life is in danger,

along with everyone else living in the

vicinity.

The monster will claim its first victims

in short order, ravaging a region that

was a pristine paradise before this

fateful day.

Tuesday, March 18th, 1980.

2 months before the eruption.

The volcano [music] towers up in the

wilderness of the Pacific Northwest,

a peaceful home of 4 million Americans,

>> [music]

>> including Seattle's 500,000 residents.

The Pacific Northwest [music] is one of

the most beautiful places in the world

to live. You've got the mountains,

you've got the land, you've got the

water, you've got the [music] ocean.

These mountains, of course, invite you

to climb them. And uh the process is a

great thing of beauty.

Uh it was just wildlife down there. A

lot of fir

trees. Uh very often, trees in many

places will be 50 to 70 ft I think the

word we often use is pristine uh because

it still seemed largely untouched.

It is a bountiful land thanks to its

fertile mountains.

Seven of the 452 volcanoes in the

Pacific Ring of Fire rise up here

in the Cascade mountain range.

The locals are proud of their volcanoes,

which have turned into majestic [music]

mountains.

And they haven't gone fully extinct,

making them all the more enthralling.

We actually consider them all active,

but just

not currently active necessarily. But

any one of them can erupt.

There is some danger, but uh

compared to the human lifetime, it

doesn't happen very often.

This spectacular [music] and timeless

slice of the American West is a

delightful place.

But soon, [music] it will show a very

different face.

My name is Steve Malone.

And when 1980 arrived, I was already

studying the volcanoes in the Pacific

Northwest.

But what happened that spring was a big

shock.

At 3:47 p.m. on Thursday, March 20th,

1980, seismologist Steve Malone notices

an alarming sign.

150 km from his office in Seattle, the

seismographs monitoring the Cascade

Mountains detect an unusually powerful

earthquake.

That's a pretty good size event. It's

not

huge or anything, but it Anything that

size would get our attention.

Well, this was the biggest earthquake

that had happened in that region in

about 16 years.

Where is the quake source located? Where

is the epicenter?

In this part of the country, earth

tremors are usually caused by shifting

tectonic plates, but the region's

volcanoes can trigger a different kind

of earthquake.

Volcanic earthquakes are those events

which respond to stress changes due to

the molten rock or magma ascending or

changing its position below or within

the volcano.

An earthquake under a volcano is a bad

sign.

It usually means the magma is moving

and could be pushed upward.

So, it came as a surprise and was cause

for concern.

Concern grows over the day

as the first tremor is followed by a

string of small earthquakes.

This started to get old.

And we were dashing around trying to

locate events and realized that almost

all of the earthquakes were relatively

shallow and they were right at Mount St.

Helens.

The concern [music] sparked fear a real

disaster could be brewing.

Because Mount St. Helens isn't a

run-of-the-mill mountain, it's a

volcano.

A highly dangerous strato volcano

identifiable by its striking cone shape.

So, it's a little bit like a tort or a

big birthday cake with many, many layers

uh creating this volcanic edifice.

Towering 3,000 m high and permanently

covered in snow, Mount St. Helens is

often referred to as America's Mount

Fuji.

But the comparison ends there.

Mount St. Helens is younger and far more

active than [music] the 100,000-year-old

Japanese volcano.

Mount St. [music] Helens we see today,

most of it is less than 4,000 years old.

Most of Mount [music] St. Helens that we

see today is younger than the pyramids

of Egypt. Mount St. Helens is a

relatively young and smaller volcano

than many,

but it has had a long history of

frequent eruptions, some of them

explosive. So, it's a sort of special

volcano within the Cascade Range.

A special volcano whose last major

eruption dates back to April 17th, 1857.

And as often happens, it was preceded by

a string of tiny tremors.

Which is why scientists fear Mount St.

Helens could be gearing up for another

big explosion.

But they have no idea how big it will

be.

Thursday, March 27th, 1980.

At 1700,

Mount St. Helens sends out the first

sign of what's brewing underground.

Plumes of steam start spewing from the

summit creating a 75-m wide crater.

The volcano is officially erupting.

It's sort of like a geyser.

Uh

it heats up and then

erupts.

My first name is Jeff, last name is

Renner.

I was a uh science journalist for a TV

station. My job essentially was to cover

science stories and [music] I

specialized in environmental and earth

science stories at that time.

We are directly over Mount St. Helens

right now and there is no question at

all that the volcanic activity has

begun.

We flew down at that point and flew over

the crater and you could see that

opening that occurred and there was a

little smudge of ash or rock that had

been blasted out with it. You can see

smoke and ash pouring from the top of

the mountain, especially on the north

side of the mountain.

It just looked uh like something was

getting ready to happen.

Volcanologists call this sort of display

a phreatic eruption.

Magma comes in contact with underground

water generating vast amounts of steam

and raising the pressure inside the

volcano to the bursting point.

Jacques-Marie Bardintzeff,

volcanologist,

Paris-Saclay University.

The volcano is full of water.

The magma is down deep, but it's

1,000°C.

Earth and heat waves start rising and

the water temperature jumps to 100°. Hot

enough to vaporize the water.

It becomes overpressure like a pressure

cooker and the summit explodes. Those of

us in geology and geophysics knew there

were volcanoes and that had erupted in

the recent geologic past and certainly

could uh ones were more dangerous than

others, but you never believe it's going

to happen now.

One of nature's most riveting displays,

but also a highly dangerous one.

Plumes of steam, ash, and rock are

blasted 3,300 m into the air

forming a huge dense dust cloud that

builds up static electricity and

generates its own lightning bolts.

I am Richard Waitt with the US

Geological Survey.

When Mount St. Helens started to become

interesting in 1980,

I was one of those who came up for the

early eruption.

Nothing like this had happened in the

United States since uh 1915 and um and

nobody nobody living now has seen

anything like this. So, it was quite

dramatic. Scientists are intrigued by

it, more than intrigued, excited by it.

Um

everybody uh people are just fascinated

by by this phenomenon.

The warning lights are flashing red now

and will be for hours because St. Helens

is erupting and it can get a lot worse.

Tuesday, April 8th, 1980.

12 days have gone by since the first

eruption.

12 days of watching the crater steadily

grow from 100 to 260 m.

It's already three times wider.

>> [music]

>> Roadblocks have been set up to keep

people safely away, but they're still

flocking to see the monster up close.

And none of them realize how dangerous

the situation truly is.

Everybody wanted to see an eruption. It

was becoming a tourist attraction.

Everyone was buying t-shirts

>> [music]

>> that noted you know, somewhat

facetiously like, "Oh, yeah, Mount St.

Helens. Well, this isn't going to do

very much, you know."

It was like the carnival.

Uh you [music] had people setting up

Hawaiian barbecue chicken stands. They

were selling souvenirs and people would

just come down. They were selling silly

hats. It's like anything that might

occur.

At that point it was pretty much a

circus. Uh you could drive up to St.

Helens and uh you would see it looked

like a parking lot of mobile TV outlets

and uh the occasional, you know, news

helicopter flying over.

But today, a new warning sign appears.

The sightseers haven't even noticed, but

scientists have been monitoring it for

hours.

The whole mountain has started bulging.

They called it like a pregnant volcano.

8.45

They thought, yes, this is unstable,

but they had no idea how huge

of a problem it was.

See, it's a bad sign.

For now, it's a phreatic eruption, but

the bulging means it could turn magmatic

very quickly.

This new looming eruption is the most

dangerous kind.

A mountain bulges when it's trying to

contain a strong upward surge of magma.

And surprisingly,

the magma isn't flowing up through the

old eruption vent.

This magma is highly vicious, but soft.

Magma from previous eruptions has cooled

and hardened inside the vents. It's rock

hard.

The new magma is hot and thick. It's

easier for it to flow up

It's easier for it to flow up outside

the vent through the mountain's north

flank.

Magma flows wherever it can. It's lazy.

It takes the easiest path.

So when it finds an outlet on the north

flank, it turns that way and starts

piling up.

The north flank starts bulging and moves

northward

as if it's about to slide off.

The sticky magma is still trapped

inside, but it's piling up.

The volcano is bulging and it's about to

explode.

But the volcano's alarming state is

invisible to the naked eye.

Despite the warnings, Mount St. Helens

continues to draw huge crowds.

The paradox between the calm surface and

the danger brewing underground is even

debated on TV.

Scientists are called in to assess the

threat. We don't know if we're very

close to slides at this point or whether

we're not close. They spar with skeptics

who are convinced nothing bad will

happen. And I couldn't understand how in

the world a mountain could ever get near

Spirit Lake. I don't think it can.

You had the debate of people that again

said scientists simply don't know what

they're talking about. They're being

overly cautious.

Jeff Renner is a 27-year-old journalist

at the time.

Sent in to cover the event, he finds a

surrealistic scene. [music]

We were living out of a tent and

we're getting ready to do a broadcast

and this car drives up.

And these two guys came out. I think

they had been having a bit of a good

time and they said, "You want an

eruption? We'll give you an eruption."

And they began to pick up rocks like

that big, throw them in the air and

they'd land on their car and they'd say,

"That's what we can expect with an

eruption."

People feel very privileged to live in

the vicinity of these big Cascade

volcanoes.

And so that makes it all the more

difficult for them to understand the

volcanic processes that form these

volcanoes and that threaten their lives.

But one man is fully aware of the

looming danger.

David Johnston is a young volcanologist

who's been monitoring the volcano around

the clock.

He's talking to the media as well, but

instead of lobbing rocks at reporters,

he uses them to get his message out.

Mount St. Helens is in a state similar

to a volcano in Russia.

Mount Bezymianny erupted 24 years before

Mount St. Helens. This eruption wiped

out 500 square kilometers of vegetation.

This represents an area [music] five

times as large as the city of Paris.

If humans are around when this happens,

they have little chance of survival.

If there's an explosion, it's probable

that the debris, the the very hot

incandescent ash that would come down

could come down all sides. But right

now, there's a very great hazard due to

the fact that the glacier's breaking up

on this side of the volcano, on the

north side, and that could produce a

very large avalanche hazard. We were

doing an interview and

he said, "Where we're standing right

now, it's like standing next to a keg of

dynamite. The fuse is lit. We just don't

know how long that fuse is."

And he said, "If it were to erupt right

now, we would die."

Everybody

had somewhat different opinions, but

the the more time went on, the more

feeling there was it's probably going to

erupt.

But we certainly cannot tell when.

A question Americans have been hotly

debating for 12 days.

When will the giant unleash its anger?

The answer will come very shortly and

even the most attentive experts will be

taken by surprise.

Saturday, May 17th, 1980.

A month has gone by since the mountain

first started bulging.

Scientists are still worried, but the

bulge seems to have stopped growing.

Skeptics who've been scoffing at a magma

explosion [music]

appear to be right.

But the seismic activity drops off.

After a while, the phreatic eruptions

stop as well. People start asking, "Why

can't we just go home?"

Maybe [music] that's the end of the

situation. Maybe it will stop.

Or maybe it will cause a failure of the

volcano, which will uncork the bottle,

so to say, and allow more [music] magma

to come out in a very explosive way.

The governor [music] of the state

decides to temporarily open the

evacuation zone.

Everyone is [music] free to wander

around Mount St. Helens incredulously,

as witnessed

>> [music]

>> by these people interviewed that day.

You don't mind working in the shadow of

the mountain, then? No, not at

Ain't nothing to be scared of.

More dangerous one of them trees falling

on the backside than there is

mountain of exploding.

As far as we know, it's just

just a joke. Well, not really a joke, I

guess, but

it could last 100 years.

But it's the quiet ones you have to

watch out for.

As scientists like volcanologist Carolyn

Driedger know all too well.

On May 17th, 1980, she sets out with a

friend to study the volcano's glaciers.

They run into the young volcanologist

David Johnston.

A meeting that will remain etched deep

in her memory.

Because the clock is already ticking

[music] down to the big blast.

And David said, "You know, I don't think

that this is really the safest place to

be." And he said, "Well, you see that

bulge over there in that slope? That

could fail and if it does, it will come

rushing [music] over here. And so, we,

you know, let's just reduce the number

of of people who are at risk."

David Johnston played a a large role in

our destiny. He saved our lives.

And yet people keep pouring in.

My name is Venus Dragon.

At the time [music] of the eruption of

Mount St. Helens, I was 20 years old.

Venus Dragon and her boyfriend Ronald

are camping along the Toutle River, 45

km from the volcano.

This camping trip was our first [music]

kind of overnight get-together since we

had returned from both of our trips.

>> [music]

>> We just loaded all of our camping gear

in the car.

We were over 30 [music] miles away, so

we we couldn't even see Mount St. Helens

from the camping area that we were at.

Keith Ronholm, a 28-year-old geophysics

student, is hunkered down 16 [music] km

from the volcano watching for any sign

of activity.

I can see Mount St. Helens off in the

distance. There are no activities.

There's no steam. There's no no plume

above the summit. I thought, "Well, I'll

just sit down on the ground and leaned

against the wheel of the car and read my

book and and had a beer." So, I had a

very enjoyable afternoon

and went to bed.

I didn't think it was going to amount to

anything, either, and uh and it was just

going to go to sleep again, but it did

not.

But a few short hours later, on the

morning of Sunday, May 18th, 1980, the

big blast scientists have been fearing

is about to come.

David Johnston, the geologist who's been

monitoring the bulge, will be the first

victim.

He tells his colleagues nothing's

moving. No change since yesterday. It's

bulging, but nothing noteworthy to

report.

But I can see the the gray

uh gray cone of Mount St. Helens

illuminated by the morning sun.

And

a little disappointed that nothing's

happening and I've driven all this way

and I'd really like to see something

happen.

They don't expect anything new that day.

Then at 8:32 Pacific time,

See? There's

On May 18th, 1980, at precisely 8:32 and

30 seconds, after 3 months of alarm

signs, Mount St. Helens violently

explodes in a major magmatic eruption,

just as scientists had feared.

It's a cataclysmic 15 megaton blast, as

powerful as 27,000 of the atomic bombs

dropped on Hiroshima.

Out of nowhere,

one more earthquake occurred

that

somehow destabilized the north side of

the mountain, and the whole thing slid

away.

And that started the cataclysmic

eruption.

As the magma works its way out, pressure

builds in the molten rock and causes the

trapped gases to explode.

So, the landslides have been sitting on

top of this magma intruding volcano and

keeping it sort of corked in.

And it's it's a bit like any analogy

would be like

agitating a champagne bottle and then

pulling the cork on it. And And so, the

stuff underneath froths and comes out

the top.

It's an explosion so powerful, it splits

the volcano literally in half.

3 billion cubic meters of rock break off

in a split second, sending the north

flank hurtling downward at over 175

km/h.

And it's just the start.

The avalanche unleashes the magma,

causing it to explode.

The magma is a few hundred meters

underground. It's pushing upward, but

the mountain flank is holding it back.

Then, the flank suddenly slides off.

And all that over-pressured magma bursts

out like a shotgun blast.

The blast sends up a giant cloud of gas,

ash, magma, and pulverized rock.

It isn't a huge blast, but extremely

violent and produces tremendous energy.

It travels incredibly fast and far, and

is burning hot, 500 to 600° C.

The blast is frighteningly fast, moving

1,065 km/h.

As these images show, it zooms out far

ahead of the unfolding landslide.

These two phenomena combine to create a

powerful blast of air that whips up the

water in Spirit Lake,

6 km northwest of the volcano, [music]

creating a wave 180 m tall.

It ejects the water. Pushes the water

ahead of it. The water runs up Spirit

Lake. Spirit Lake has got two arms. Both

of them are narrowing.

So, it's it pushes some up into the

narrowing arm.

And the lake and all its water are

displaced, creating a tsunami on top of

the eruption.

>> [music]

>> Many people will find themselves caught

up in these destructive mechanics.

16 km away, Keith Ronholm is sitting in

his van [music] when suddenly

I'm reading along, and suddenly I I hear

some yelling.

And I glanced over,

and the entire north side of Mount St.

Helens was sliding down.

And I couldn't believe my eyes.

Oh,

I'm going to see an eruption.

Ronholm climbs out of his van and

captures the moment on film. His series

of photographs shows how the explosion

unfolded second by second.

And I noticed that the entire cone of

Mount St. Helens was now obscured by

this gray churning mass of cloud.

And I I I thought, "Wow, that's getting

big pretty fast."

Far from the volcano, protected by two

crest lines, Keith thinks he's safe.

But he quickly realizes he's sorely

mistaken.

As it hits

the first ridge, starts to to tumble and

churn like it's a wave hitting a

breakwater, and just splashing over it.

Meanwhile, Dorothy Stoffel is flying

over the volcano with her husband,

Bruce, who's trying to steer the

airplane away from the blast.

I couldn't take picture.

For something that huge to be happening,

we were in serious trouble.

Keith started yelling, "Oh, neat. Oh,

neat. Oh, neat. We're probably going to

not survive."

This is it.

Back on the ground, Keith Ronholm

watches the wave of ash roll over the

second crest and barrel straight toward

him.

At that point, I had gone from not being

scared to

"Oh my, it's coming. I better get out of

here."

So, I took one picture, and I kept

driving.

And then I could see above my head

this mushroom cloud with this wall of

cloud behind me.

A giant mushroom cloud, like the one

that swallowed up Pompeii 2,000 years

ago.

The landslide and blast are the

precursors of a far more devastating

phenomenon that is fast approaching.

Sunday, May 18th, 1980, 8:37 a.m.

Mount St. Helens has been exploding

[music] for 5 minutes.

A colossal cloud has formed high in the

atmosphere, threatening nearby

populations.

This time, the volcano spews its anger

vertically instead of laterally.

It gathers up ambient air and builds

what scientists call an eruption column.

Cool air coming in feeds this

phenomenon, and and it makes this giant

[music] column.

It goes way up.

It jets up,

and then convects

up high, up into the stratosphere.

It's enormous and fast, moving at the

astounding speed of a kilometer a

minute, and it's loaded with ash.

Up in her airplane, a terrified Dorothy

Stoffel watches the [music] column form.

Honestly, it looked like a giant bomb.

But with all the heat and the forces, it

began to lift up. Eruption became 65,000

ft high.

And I felt numb.

It's 8:42.

10 minutes after the eruption started,

the giant plume stretches 15 km into the

air, nearly twice as high as an

airliner's cruising altitude. The danger

now isn't that the plume could rise even

higher, but that it could dissipate and

fall back down.

The jet stream, a powerful [music] air

current appreciated for giving aircraft

a boost of speed, will carry the ash

cloud downwind.

540,000

cubic kilometers of pumice, a volume

larger than the volcano itself, hang in

the air, then plunge back down to Earth

like tiny mortar shells.

The plume opens up like an umbrella, 25

km to the west and 50 km to the east.

The plume grows and spreads very

quickly.

It moves eastward at 100 km/h,

blanketing all the land below in ash.

Vince [music] Larson is on Mount Adams,

45 km from Mount St. Helens.

He snaps [music] these last photos

before the plume reaches him.

We could not see anything more than

perhaps 30 m away from us. And the sun,

which had been brilliant that morning,

>> [music]

>> uh became obscured.

At the same time, the ashes and a lot of

debris were falling on the snow around

us.

Uh some of this was hot.

My son, David, said,

"Uh Dad, are are we going to die now?"

And I said, "No, Dave. I think we're

going to be okay."

>> [music]

>> We see the mountain itself

disappeared completely in a cloud of

ash.

Our entire sky turns dark like uh big

storm clouds.

It was like uh a summer rain shower with

large water droplets falling.

And uh and that's when the snow started

turning

dark and brown. Everybody thinks about

Pompeii.

And wondering, you know, are we having a

real Pompeii experience here?

The same terrible thought runs through

Keith Ronholm's mind.

Behind the wheel of his pickup, he's

trying to outrun the dangerous downpour.

He's caught up in a real-life disaster

film.

Now it's gotten to be pitch dark.

I can't see my hand in front of my face.

And uh cuz it's it's it's so black.

Now I'm scared again.

Um when the when the sky is falling, you

get scared.

And these are rocks falling from the

sky.

I was trying to drive down the road and

within a minute or so, these

uh

rocks started to fade away. But they're

replaced [music] with

stuff that was sticking to the

windshield. Little drops of mud

that were became bigger drops of mud.

Until now, the cab of Keith's truck has

protected [music] him.

But the ash is starting to seep inside.

And the the ash is starting to now

filter into the cab of the pickup.

And I think, "Oh, I've got my ice chest

next to me. So, I grabbed a handkerchief

and dipped it in the ice water, put it

over my face, and so I'm breathing

[music] through this trying not to

breathe these ash particles.

The distressed young man comes across

other fleeing cars.

They appear to be guided by a big rig.

He decides to follow behind.

We proceeded at a walking pace

for 15, 20 minutes or so.

It's pitch dark. The cars in front of me

are stirring up the ash as as they're

moving.

Yeah, at least you feel like you're

making progress to getting away from the

events happening behind. So, it felt a

little safer and

He barely has time to take shelter in a

church basement when a new danger looms.

You could see the ash raining down

in front of the street light. What's

happening? You know, what's going to

happen to us? And

uh you know, are we going to get hit by

lava? And

A new danger does arise, but it's not

lava.

What comes next is far more dangerous.

A lahar, a burning hot flow of fluid

mud.

A phenomenon all too familiar to

volcanologists.

Herculaneum, the city next to Pompeii,

was hit by a lahar and wiped off the map

in a matter of minutes.

Nothing stops this tremendously

destructive force. A lahar is a mass of

mud and rocks and boulders from a

volcano that moves downstream very

rapidly.

Usually caused by either debris

avalanche or from snow and ice melt

[music] during an eruption.

And if that weren't bad enough, this is

one of the most heavily wooded areas in

the US.

Like ogres, lahars uproot thousands of

trees and send them crashing forward.

It basically cleans out everything. It

cleans out the valley. It incorporates

stuff,

buries things, any bridges or vehicles,

anything that would get caught in it and

buried or

ruined.

It's spectacular. It looks like tons of

matchsticks laid out the same direction

for miles on end.

We're talking about trees 30 to 35 m

tall with giant trunks. It's staggering.

>> [music]

>> Venus's story illustrates just how

violent it truly was. [music]

She and her boyfriend Roald are still

asleep at their campsite in Toutle, 45

km below the volcano.

We were still in our tent, and what woke

the both of us up was the sound of the

evacuation siren going off in the town

of Toutle.

We noticed the water rising [music]

extremely fast towards our tent, and so

that's when

we knew that there was something wrong

and we needed to get out of the

campsite.

Roald tried to start the car, it didn't

turn over, and by the time we looked up,

we saw a huge train trestle coming at us

um holding back a mass of logs and mud,

and it came around the bend at the

campsite where we were we were camped

and unleashed

the water and the logs surrounding the

car. It So, there was no place to run.

We could see trees being snapped down

just like toothpicks as it came [music]

as it came towards our campsite. It

it was a surreal sight. It's something

uh uh of a movie.

So, we

jumped out of the car and jumped onto

the roof of the car.

And at that point, it just [music]

picked up the car and threw us into the

torrent of water and logs and mud and

started sweeping us down the

down the river.

You're you are in just a reactive mode.

And so that's what we did.

The lahars and their torrent of uprooted

trees are barreling down the slopes as

this aerial footage shows.

Venus is thrown into the mudflow.

Her boyfriend manages to stay on top of

the floating logs. He tries desperately

[music] to save her.

He just kept screaming, "Hang on."

He was on top of the debris and I was in

it. And I was just grasping at anything

that I could grasp onto, and the trees

[music] were as big around as as I was

tall.

And it got pinched [music] between two

logs.

Um and at that point, um I was pulled

down into the mud and my hand was stuck

up between two logs.

And at that point, everything went

black.

It's 10:00 a.m.

Journalist Jeff Renner and his cameraman

Mark Anderson rush in aboard a

helicopter.

They're the first ones to fly through

the volcanic cloud.

We couldn't see it was all uh ash in the

air, and we really couldn't see the

mountain.

But we could definitely see that over

there it's blue.

Over here it's ash everywhere.

The helicopter pilot

says to us,

"Okay, you guys,

the FAA has put up a 40-mile exclusion

zone.

Uh

what do you think we should do?"

So, Mark Anderson and Bob Wright, the

helicopter pilot, and I all conversed

and came to an agreement that yet yes,

this is dangerous, but this is something

that we are called to do.

Mark, Jeff, and their pilot defy the

safety rules, putting their lives on the

line

to capture the first images of Mount St.

that have carried away Venus and her

boyfriend.

The river literally looked like it was

boiling. Now, it wasn't hot, but it was

just moving at such a velocity that it

was obvious that this was a big

eruption.

And as I was shooting, it was

it was unbelievable because, you know,

the the world had been destroyed.

It wasn't go here, go there. It was

eyes wide open

just trying to shoot everything that as

we're going.

Uh because uh

uh certainly we had no idea what was

going to happen in the hours to come.

A few hundred meters below them,

Venus Turgan's harrowing ordeal

continues.

It was popping me up and popped me down,

and I was just grabbing whatever I could

to hang on to stay above the mud, but I

kept getting pulled down because there

was debris and timber underneath me.

I had been down so long that I thought,

"This is it. I'm not I'm not coming back

up again." I I thought

my life had ended at that point.

But her boyfriend refused to give up on

her.

I felt Roald grab my hand, and with all

of his strength, he he pulled me up out

of the mud.

We started jumping from log to log

trying to get up a hillside and get to

high ground.

I was going in shock at that point

because I was still trying to figure

[music] out what had just occurred.

It's the craziest ride I've ever had in

my life.

Venus is seriously injured. Luckily, she

receives immediate medical care.

Many other victims won't be as lucky.

The Mount St. Helens eruption [music]

kills 57 people.

Most die from asphyxiation.

Others, like volcanologist David

Johnston, likely one of the first people

hit by the volcano's fiery outburst,

have never been [music] found.

There's no [music] question that David

and his work saved a lot of lives, and

also because of his work and the work of

his colleagues [music] helped us better

understand volcanoes and uh

gave us the gift of understanding what

leads up to a major eruption to help

save lives in the future.

The disaster [music] took a heavy toll

on the environment. The numbers are

staggering.

500 square kilometers of forest land,

300 kilometers of [music] roads and 47

bridges were wiped out.

Mount St. Helens [music] and the

pristine landscape it nestled in are

unrecognizable.

It was just so desolate. [music] There

was no sign of life anywhere and it

looked like a prehistoric landscape. If

there had been a pterodactyl, one of

those flying dinosaurs that had suddenly

flown out of the crater of the volcano,

I wouldn't have been surprised. [music]

It was

you know, like [music] somebody had

moved the mountain down.

Jimmy Carter, president at the time,

struggles to describe the [music]

devastation.

I might have said it looked like a a

moonscape.

But the moon looks like a golf course

compared to uh

compared to what's up there.

Terrifying in its enormity,

remarkable for [music] the quantity and

quality of first-hand accounts and

images,

the 1980 Mount St. Helens eruption

remains a striking case in volcano

studies.

For us volcanologists, there's a before

and after St. Helens.

It was a key eruption that's been widely

studied.

It occurred in the world's most

technologically and scientifically

advanced country which had vast

resources in 1980.

>> [music]

>> The comparison with Mount Fuji no longer

applies.

The explosion blew out Mount St. Helens'

cone-shaped [music] summit.

With its old dome, the volcano looked

like a mountain.

Today, it is topped by a large crater,

the indelible mark left [music] by the

disaster.

And it's sort of this sigh of relief

that that I survived this and and uh you

know, I'm

I'm uninjured.

I say that all of life that I've had

since May [music] 18th, 1980, I call it

my bonus.

And I don't take life for granted.

And I tell my friends [music] and

family, now remember, when you have a

bad day,

remember you're [music] part of

Dorothy's bonus.

It's kind of unbelievable to think back

on it on 40 years that I actually

survived something like that. It [music]

all seems like a crazy dream at this

point.

The human race [music] is continuing to

grow on this planet,

but that's not going to stop Mother

Nature from doing what it naturally

[music] does. And we need to be we need

to have a plan in place to know how to

you can't mitigate it. You're going to

have to learn to live with it and how to

survive it.

In the surrounding wildlands, nature has

sprung back to life.

But Mount St. Helens is still the most

active volcano in the US.

It is monitored 24/7.

There will be an eruption. But can we

predict when? No.

It could if the phenomena could start

tomorrow [music] as a matter of fact.

They could start 10 years from now. They

could start 100 years from now. We we

can't really tell.

Uh we but

is it going to erupt? Yes. Of course.

Some 8 million people, four times the

population of Paris, are now living in

the state of Washington.

And at any minute, this volcano-laden

land they call home could change

drastically with the entire region

spiraling once again out of control.