All language subtitles for Surviving.the.Mount.St.Helens.Disaster.2020.1080p.WEBRip.x265-RARBG2_English

(rumbling)

NARRATOR: An unforgettable day
in America's history.

OFFICER: We had a major
eruption occurring at 8:32

approximately this morning
on Mount St. Helens.

MAN: The top of the mountain
seems to have been blown away.

MAN: This was a game changer.

NARRATOR: The eruption
of Mount St. Helens

was the first of its kind
ever filmed.

The volcano unleashed
four super-sized cataclysms.

First, the world's largest
landslide ever recorded.

Then, an explosion equivalent
to 500 Hiroshima bombs.

MAN: It was like you were
being cremated alive.

NARRATOR: Lethal mudflows.

SHERIFF: Get off the bridge!
(whistles)

Come on! Get over here!

NARRATOR: And enough ash
to cover 12 states.

(thud)

40 years on, digitally
remastered archive,

eyewitness accounts,
and animated photographs

reveal why this was
the USA's deadliest volcano.

MAN: I really believed I had no
chance of living through this.

♪ ♪

NARRATOR: Welcome to
Mount St. Helens, before 1980.

ANNOUNCER: A haven
for recreational activities

and youth camps.

A place as close to heaven
as one could get.

NARRATOR: The snow-capped giant

had slumbered
for over a century,

but that was about to change.

♪ ♪

ANCHORMAN: There are
rumblings of something big

about to happen
in Washington State.

NARRATOR: Deep beneath the
northwest corner of the U.S.,

the giant was slowly waking.

REPORTER:
An earthquake hitting
4.3 on the Richter scale

shook the mountain.

REPORTER: The volcano
is spewing a steady stream

of ash, smoke, and steam.

REPORTER: And experts say
a major explosion is overdue.

NARRATOR: The question was,

when would
the big eruption arrive?

Don Swanson, a volcanologist

with the
U.S. Geological Survey,

was sent in
to assess the danger.

DON SWANSON:
We're really sort of fumbling

as to exactly what this means.

You could see that there were
cracks surrounding the crater,

where the summit had collapsed.

The top of the volcano
was a very unstable place,

and it was breaking up.

NARRATOR: Mount St. Helens
had erupted before.

It lies on one of the earth's
most geologically active zones.

ANNOUNCER:
A huge linear fault system

melts millions of tons of rock.

ANNOUNCER:
Every so often, magma
rises up into the mountain,

and the mountain
is ready to erupt.

NARRATOR: Within a day
of the first sign of ash,

scientists were monitoring
the volcano around the clock.

A state of emergency
was declared.

DIXY LEE RAY: Don't go
to Mount St. Helens.

Don't try to get as close
to the mountain as possible.

REPORTER:
Roadblocks have been set up.

The public is prohibited
from entering.

WOMAN: How would you feel?

We're paying taxes, and we'd
like to use our property.

I'm not afraid!

NARRATOR: Deputy Sheriff
George Barker was on duty.

GEORGE BARKER: Right now people
are coming in at their own risk,

and they're signing in and out
at this checkpoint.

I was a brand-new deputy,
and now all of a sudden

they were talking about eruption
and poison gases

and lava
and this kind of thing.

It was all unknown,
and it was like, wow,

a real adventure.

NARRATOR: Authorities
marked out a restriction zone

and evacuated
hundreds of people.

MAN: You're gonna have to go,
and the faster, the better.

One time, you gotta go!

NARRATOR: But one resident
wouldn't budge--Harry Truman.

He lived at Spirit Lake,
inside the restriction zone.

HARRY TRUMAN: Spirit Lake
and Mount St. Helens is my life.

Folks,
I've lived there 50 years.

It's a part of me.

BARKER: Truman thought,
this is gonna be lava

coming rolling down
the side of the mountain.

You simply run away from it,
you drive away from it.

TRUMAN: I'll get in my yacht

and get out on the lake,

get away from that lava

if it ever comes down
this far, yeah.

NARRATOR: Most of the world's
volcanoes erupt upwards,

out of the top.

But instead,
Mount St. Helens would erupt

in a way
rarely witnessed before.

♪ ♪

On the north face, geologists
noticed an ominous bulge.

In a matter of weeks,
it would expand by 450 feet.

SWANSON: These changes
were unprecedented.

There was more and more magma
intruding into the volcano

and pushing
the north side outward.

It was a really hectic time.

NARRATOR: Don's team
included a young geologist

called David Johnston.

DAVID JOHNSTON:
Its historic eruptions

have been very explosive.

The initial phases
would produce ashfall

all over
southwestern Washington.

NARRATOR: David would
monitor the bulge

from a ridge
called South Coldwater.

SWANSON: We were hoping
that our monitoring

would show an increase
in rate of the bulge movement

or something
that we could use to say

that the volcano was really
building up to a culmination,

but we never saw that.

NARRATOR: For five weeks,

the volcano
intermittently rumbled

and spewed gases and ash.

REPORTER: As scientists
fumble for the truth,

everyone else is fumbling
to get in on the act

and make a fast buck.

♪ What kind of volcano
merely burps up ash? ♪

♪ We want lava, we want lava ♪

♪ Bubby dooby dooday ♪

REPORTER: It draws
people of all sorts.

They come filled with wonder.

MAN: That was just unbelievable!

MAN: I wanna see it blow.

(laughs) It'd be great.

REPORTER:
Sightseers crowded remote
logging roads for a view.

Those who tried hard enough
could always find a way in.

NARRATOR: The eruption would
arrive with little warning

and reach far beyond
the restriction zone.

(airplane engine starts)

Geologist Dorothy Stoffel
headed into the sky,

towards Mount St. Helens.

DOROTHY STOFFEL:
It was just a beautiful day.

It was so serene.

NARRATOR: She'd been
granted permission

to photograph the volcano
from the air.

STOFFEL: I thought,
it's become dormant again,

and we missed all the activity.

But on the north side
of the mountain,

we could see water
from melting snow and ice,

as though the mountain
was weeping on the north side.

We just had no sense
of anything going to happen.

NARRATOR: The meltwater
had fast-tracked the volcano

to its deadly destiny.

♪ ♪

On the ground,
7,000 feet below Dorothy,

a student, Catherine Hickson,

and her husband
had been camping.

CATHERINE HICKSON: We just had
this beautiful panoramic view

of the volcano.

Really not much was going on.

The volcano was very quiet,

but the dogs
acted very strangely.

You often hear
about how animals react

prior to either an earthquake
or an eruption or whatnot.

NARRATOR:
Catherine and her husband

were nine miles
to the east of the volcano.

Resident Harry Truman was
at his home on Spirit Lake.

David Johnston
monitored the bulge

from South Coldwater Ridge.

David and Catherine were

outside the restriction zone.

Harry was inside it.

The U.S. Geological Survey
in Washington State.

SWANSON: Suddenly
the seismographs went bonkers.

The needles just started
jumping all over the place.

NARRATOR: An earthquake hitting
5.1 on the Richter scale

ripped through
the volcano's core.

SWANSON: I'm not sure I've
ever been so excited before.

NARRATOR: The quake set off a
chain of life-changing events,

all of them unstoppable.

The volcanic monster had woken.

Making one last pass
in her plane,

Dorothy photographed
the first moments of disaster.

♪ ♪

STOFFEL: Nothing is happening,
and then all of a sudden,

the ice began to fall
into the summit.

And I got so excited.

NARRATOR: But Dorothy
was right above a volcano

about to unleash
its first cataclysm.

STOFFEL: The instant
that I took that second picture,

the most bizarre thing happened.

We could see this fracture
opening up.

NARRATOR: She photographed
the moment of collapse.

Meltwater had penetrated
the north face,

helping to destabilize
the bulge.

STOFFEL: The whole north side
of the mountain,

it became almost fluid,

like someone was slicing
the mountain in half.

NARRATOR: Catherine Hickson's
husband also took pictures.

They reveal the start of
the largest recorded landslide

on Earth.

HICKSON: The landslide
was an amazing event.

The mountain is disintegrating
and is moving.

It was like watching,
on a grand scale,

this giant wave.

Essentially the mountain
falling apart before our eyes.

NARRATOR: 3.3 billion
cubic yards of rock and ice

hurtled down the volcano.

STOFFEL: You expect
mountains to erupt.

You don't expect mountains
to fall apart.

NARRATOR:
The landslide triggered

something far more powerful.

STOFFEL: I thought we were dead.

♪ ♪

NARRATOR: An explosion
burst out of the north face.

♪ ♪

STOFFEL: I was looking directly
down on the blast coming up.

I really thought we were
going to be blown apart.

NARRATOR: Photographers
captured the instantaneous

pressure release of the magma.

Water inside the volcano
flashed to steam.

More than a thousandfold
increase in volume,

catapulting the eruption
into a massive explosion.

HICKSON: We just saw
this writhing, boiling cloud,

blacks and grays
just shooting out to the north.

NARRATOR: Scientists call it
a pyroclastic surge--

a blast of rock, ice, and gas

superheated up
to 660 degrees Fahrenheit,

accelerating to speeds
over 600 miles per hour.

HICKSON:
This eruption was getting

bigger and bigger and bigger,

faster and faster than anything
that I could have anticipated.

NARRATOR: The blast threatened
to engulf Dorothy's plane.

STOFFEL: The pilot put
our airplane into a nosedive

to try to outrun the blast.

I can't emphasize enough
how quickly the blast developed

into enormous proportions.

I thought, "We're going
to disappear from this earth,

and my mother's never gonna
know what happened to me."

NARRATOR: The blast
was visible to climbers

on peaks over 30 miles away,

an explosion equivalent
to 500 Hiroshima bombs.

The pilot's maneuver
saved their lives.

STOFFEL: The whole experience
was very eerie and strange.

It was a sense of awe,
wonderment.

It was amazing that so much
earth could be destroyed

in such a brief instant.

NARRATOR: Two catastrophic
events were in motion.

One, the massive landslide

traveled
over 100 miles an hour,

eventually spilling 14 miles
down the Toutle Valley.

And two, the pyroclastic surge.

In two minutes,
it covered almost seven miles,

destroying Spirit Lake

and engulfing
South Coldwater Ridge.

Harry Truman was killed,

buried beneath
150 feet of debris.

A similar fate
for David Johnston

at his monitoring post.

SWANSON: It really hit home hard

that we'd lost a colleague
and a friend,

and, and that's when,
that's when the tears began.

♪ ♪

NARRATOR: The size
and direction of the eruption

made it much more destructive
than predicted.

Mount St. Helens
had exploded sideways,

the first lateral blast
ever recorded in real time.

In their car, Catherine,
her husband, and their dogs

were trying to outrun
the growing blast.

HICKSON:
I was looking backwards,

basically seeing
this incredible cloud

just moving much faster
than we were, in fact, moving.

It was the most terrifying
moments of the entire eruption.

I knew it would be hot,

it would potentially
suffocate us,

and that would be the end.

NARRATOR: And for some, it was.

NARRATOR:
Catherine and her husband

were far enough east
of the volcano

to escape with their lives.

HICKSON: It was a feeling
of incredible relief,

but also incredible wonder.

Like, what we had witnessed
was truly phenomenal.

NARRATOR: The pyroclastic surge
was spreading north,

far beyond
the restriction zone.

♪ ♪

Minutes before the eruption,

logger Jim Scymanky felled
trees with two co-workers,

while another logger,
Jose Dias,

rested in a nearby truck.

JIM SCYMANKY:
A beautiful morning, gorgeous.

We didn't hear
too much wildlife, though.

NARRATOR: Jim was over 12 miles
from the volcano,

outside the restriction zone.

He had no idea that
he was about to get caught

in a blast
hurtling towards him.

(boom)

(beeping)

(boom)

SCYMANKY: As we were working,

we heard somebody
screaming and yelling.

The next thing we saw
was Jose Dias

come running down
through the woods, screaming,

"The volcano's exploding!"

(screaming)

We couldn't believe it.
We didn't hear anything.

And then I turned back around,

and that's when I heard
this huge roaring sound

coming through the woods.

NARRATOR: Approaching them, the
superheated pyroclastic surge.

SCYMANKY: It sounded like
freight trains coming through.

It was just a huge roar.

You couldn't hear anything.
Deafening.

Unbelievable.

And this thing was so fast,
it just overtook you in seconds.

NARRATOR: The blast
hit the four loggers.

SCYMANKY:
It just turned pitch-black.

NARRATOR: They were smothered
by superheated gases and ash.

SCYMANKY: We were being
pummeled with God knows what.

It was like you were
being cremated alive.

You know, the pain
was just unreal.

NARRATOR: Deadly quantities
of pulverized rock

clogged his airways.

SCYMANKY: You couldn't breathe.

Trying to take a breath
(inhales)

nothing, zero oxygen.

I knew I was gonna die
right there.

NARRATOR: The blast fanned
north, east, and west

for up to 19 miles,

scorching and flattening
everything it touched.

Barely four minutes
into the eruption,

it's estimated the volcano
had taken more than 40 lives,

some of the first recorded
fatalities from a volcano

in the continental U.S.

At the same time, a young
news cameraman, David Crockett,

was making his getaway by car

five miles
west of the mountain.

He was about to get trapped

by the volcano's
third catastrophe--

deadly mudflows
known as lahars.

(rumbling)

DAVID CROCKETT:
I thought, oh, here we go,

it's just
a normal eruption again,

and I'll have my footage
in 15 minutes

and be back home by lunch.

I was not expecting
what happened, absolutely not.

Right in front of me,
there was just this explosion

of mud and trees and rocks.

I had no place to drive.

NARRATOR: He started filming.

Heat from the eruption

had melted
Mount St. Helens' ice cap,

unleashing billions of gallons
of water from the summit,

creating lethal lahars,

thick with volcanic debris
and ash.

David needed to escape
to higher ground.

CROCKETT: I knew
I had to try to wade

across this flow in front of me.

Grabbed my camera.
I had no choice.

I waded into it
about thigh deep.

Felt like warm concrete.

I still have trouble believing I
made it across that, but I did.

NARRATOR: But above him,
another danger loomed--

a plume of rock and ash.

CROCKETT:
It was just incredible.

It was hard to make sense
out of the scale of it.

This enormous cloud
just blocking out the sky,

just full of purples
and blacks and greens

and lightning everywhere.

NARRATOR:
Miles high and growing.

CROCKETT: It was just hard
to wrap my mind around.

It was awesomely beautiful

and awesomely scary
at the same time.

NARRATOR:
But the ash was falling,

bringing
a suffocating darkness.

CROCKETT:
The valley was literally

disappearing behind me.

NARRATOR: The volcano's
fourth cataclysm was coming.

NARRATOR: Within half an hour
of the blast,

the fourth cataclysm--
a menacing cloud of ash.

(phone rings)

CROCKETT: This is Dave
from the comms center.

MAN: Hello, Dave.

CROCKETT: Have you had a chance
to look out your windows yet?

MAN: No, not really.

CROCKETT: We got
about a 40,000-foot cloud

above the top of the mountain

and filling
the entire county and sky.

NARRATOR: The column
of destruction poured upwards,

more than 12 miles high.

BARKER: This disaster got
bigger and bigger and bigger.

OFFICER: We had a major
eruption occurring at 8:32

approximately this morning
on Mount St. Helens.

BARKER: It kept escalating
as to how many

different agencies
needed to respond.

NARRATOR: Deputy George
Barker's task was to head out

and warn of
the approaching mudflows.

BARKER: A sergeant came
on the air and said,

"I'm gonna say it plainly,

but there's gonna be
a lot of deaths."

I realized, it's pretty serious.

NEWSCASTER: The news
this morning is of human beings

trying to comprehend
what nature is doing to them.

We're not used to volcanoes
in this country.

REPORTER: It's a frightening
tale of survival in a nightmare.

♪ ♪

CROCKETT:
Dear God, this is hell on earth
I'm walking through.

Aw, God!

NARRATOR:
News cameraman David Crockett

filmed
his terrifying experience

from deep within the ash cloud.

CROCKETT: I can hear the
mountain behind me rumbling.

I feel the ash now in my eyes.

It's getting very hard
to breathe.

It's the strangest feeling.

I really believed I had no
chance of living through this.

NARRATOR: Fine ash particles
were slowly asphyxiating him.

CROCKETT: Oh, dear God!

It was in my nose.
It was in my mouth.

Oh, God,
if I can just keep walking.

If there's more air to breathe.

There were constant earthquakes.

The ground was moving
the whole time.

Just about every sensory
experience you could,

you could feel was going on.

(coughing)

I didn't realize how badly
I wanted to live.

NARRATOR: The Forestry Service
sent in a plane

to assess the destruction.

Volcanologist Don Swanson
seized the chance

to film the eruption
from the air.

SWANSON: Being able
to see it up close

was really quite
an emotional experience for me

because here it was happening
right in, right in front of me.

NARRATOR: His footage
reveals the twisting helix

of gas, rock, and ash.

SWANSON: It looked like
the head of a cauliflower,

but much more ominous
and much dirtier.

It was just frustrating
that we couldn't get closer.

NARRATOR: Through the ash,

he glimpsed what was left
of Mount St. Helens.

SWANSON: I said to myself,

"Oh, no, this can't
have happened."

The top of the mountain
was gone.

NARRATOR: The blast
had obliterated 1,300 feet

of rock and ice
from the summit.

The column of ash rose out
of a crater over a mile wide.

SWANSON: That destruction
amazed and shocked me.

♪ ♪

NARRATOR: The ash spread.

Day became night.

REPORTER: In Yakima,
Washington, this morning,

85 miles north
of Mount St. Helens,

it was like midnight.

Streetlights
came on automatically,

and many cars stalled when
the ash clogged carburetors.

NARRATOR:
Downwind of the volcano,

in the town of Ephrata,
townsfolk stopped and stared.

What appeared to be
an approaching storm

was the expanding ash cloud,

already 140 miles
from the volcano.

Somehow, logger Jim Scymanky
and his co-workers

had survived.

SCYMANKY: I looked at them,
and I thought, "Oh, my God.

They look horrible."

My clothes were welded
to me basically.

My gloves
were welded to my hands,

and we were in so much pain.

I was wondering, "God, I wonder
how long it takes to die."

NARRATOR: They walked for miles
in search of help.

SCYMANKY:
The landscape was gone.

You had no bearing.

NARRATOR: This is all
that remained of the forest

where Jim had worked,
just 90 minutes earlier.

SCYMANKY: Everything was
just smoldering and down.

Just us and the devastation.

NARRATOR: A few miles away,
the ash had cleared

and David Crockett
could breathe once again.

CROCKETT: I had my still camera,
and I just, click, I made it!

I think you can see
a pretty big smile on my face.

That's the first moment
I thought,

"Hey, I might make it
out of here alive.

This is amazing!"

NARRATOR: But the eruption was
reaching a new violent phase,

and the muddy lahars
were wreaking havoc

in the valleys below.

NARRATOR: Nearly four hours
after the blast,

the eruption was in full flow.

Lava blocks and pumice
spewed out from the crater,

heaping yet more devastation

onto the north side
of the volcano.

The lahars
roared down the mountain,

gathering pace and power.

MAN ON RADIO:
All units, Toutle area,

have report of a mudflow
three-quarters of a mile

to one mile wide
coming down the Toutle.

NARRATOR: A 20-foot-high
wall of water

carried a lethal load
of sediment and logs.

Jim Scymanky witnessed
this rare force of nature

in the valley below him.

SCYMANKY: Just unbelievable!

It had trailers in it.

It had heavy equipment
like bulldozers.

It had parts of houses,
trees, huge trees,

and just rolling, slow roll.

It was just engulfing
everything.

NARRATOR: Downstream,

it threatened bridges
and highways,

vital escape routes
away from the volcano.

(crash)

MAN: Woo!

SHERIFF: Get off the bridge!
(whistles)

Come on! Get over here!

NARRATOR: Deputy George Barker
saw the lahars

approach the Toutle Bridge.

BARKER: Bob is screaming
on the radio,

"Clear the bridges!

Clear the bridges!"

I saw that bridge go out.

It was a big span, and it went
down pretty relatively quick.

Truthfully, I was very afraid
of what was happening,

for my own sake.

NARRATOR: For hours,
the lahars funneled down

both forks of the Toutle River,

putting a dozen bridges
out of action.

♪ ♪

The scale of destruction
was beyond the scope

of the local counties.

MAN ON RADIO: We're gonna
have a real problem down below,

that's all I can say right now.

NARRATOR: The National Guard
was called up...

including pilot
Jess Hagerman...

and Darald Stebner,
a Vietnam veteran.

Stebner and Hagerman's task

was to fly
into the blast zone...

PILOT: Oh, that's some
hot ground, boy, and on. Gee!

NARRATOR:
...and search for survivors.

JESS HAGERMAN:
We didn't know in those days

what this thing was all about,

and we didn't have a clue
of where we were going

or what we were gonna find.

NARRATOR: They had to fly
toward the erupting volcano.

DARALD STEBNER: "This is
scarier than Vietnam," I said,

"because there's no place
we can go with this thing."

You don't know if that thing's
gonna erupt again.

And the eruption has
a much more severe consequence

than an AK-47 round.

HAGERMAN: It was unbelievable,
the power of this cloud.

And you're flying around
in this little bitty helicopter,

and you think, like, it's like
a gnat in the universe.

NARRATOR: Beneath them,

a colorless,
lifeless landscape.

HAGERMAN: The sky, the ground,
everything was the same color.

It was all covered with ash.

STEBNER: I'm stumbling
for words now. I was then, too.

It was just that
it was so overwhelming,

where does one start?

NARRATOR:
No trees were left standing.

HAGERMAN: It just looked
like somebody had taken

a great big giant comb
and just combed 'em down.

All the trees were laying
in the same direction.

STEBNER: You just can't believe
what you're looking at.

PILOT: Nothing matches the map.

NARRATOR: Landmarks
had been obliterated.

PILOT: Where's Spirit Lake?
Is that it over there?

Doesn't look like any place
I've ever been before.

NARRATOR:
Lost within the devastation,

the volcano's victims.

STEBNER: How could anybody
survive the initial blast

with what it did
to those trees?

NARRATOR: About eight hours in,
a lahar was reaching its peak

20 miles
down the Toutle Valley,

where photographers captured
an astonishing act of bravery.

Two brothers,
Robert and John Brown,

attempted to free some horses.

ROBERT BROWN: They had just as
much a right to live as we did.

We gave it a shot.

NARRATOR: For half an hour,
they fought to drive them

over a railroad track
to dry land,

but nature proved too powerful.

BROWN: I looked up, and I saw
a wave of mud coming at us.

NARRATOR:
Another surge approached.

BROWN: We were between
a rock and a hard spot.

John, he just passed out
right there on the spot,

from just exhaustion.

We had to give up on the horses.

NARRATOR: On the mountain,
a glimmer of hope--footprints.

HAGERMAN:
Naturally, you're excited

because somebody's alive
out here,

and we're gonna find somebody.

♪ ♪

HAGERMAN: All of a sudden, we
see two guys laying on the road.

SCYMANKY:
They came out of nowhere,

and they were hovering
right above us.

NARRATOR: Jim Scymanky
and one other logger

collapsed
in the ashy wasteland.

SCYMANKY: I think I waved my arm
up or something, you know,

I had some strength left.

NARRATOR: But landing a chopper
in deep ash risked a collision.

SCYMANKY: The ash was so deep,

it would just
blow it everywhere,

and you couldn't even see
the helicopter.

You couldn't see anything.

HAGERMAN: It just
completely engulfed you.

Just before you land,

three or four feet
before you hit the ground,

you can see the ground.

NARRATOR: At the fringe
of the blast zone,

logger Jim had barely survived.

REPORTER: The men caught
on Mount St. Helens this morning

are now at Emanuel Hospital,

severely burned
by hot gases and ash.

SCYMANKY: But we'd been
out there for seven hours.

That's a long, long time.

Oh, the doctor
said it was a miracle.

NARRATOR:
Inside the blast zone,

Darald Stebner
was still searching.

STEBNER: We saw this large log
up ahead of us there,

and there was somebody
moving on it.

And my gosh,
we got a closer look,

and there was a gentleman
sitting up on this felled tree.

NARRATOR: Logger Jose Dias.

STEBNER: He was hunched down.
He was hurting.

I think he just felt
totally exhausted.

NARRATOR: Another rescue team
noticed a distress signal.

Three small fires led them
to cameraman David Crockett.

CROCKETT: It is so arrogant,
but I felt like,

oh, this is all
part of a day's work.

That's what it felt like
at the time.

Looking back now,

at the people who risked
their lives to save me, um...

I, of course, feel
a lot differently.

♪ ♪

NARRATOR: Mount St. Helens
had done its worst.

The volcano had ejected
540 million tons of ash.

REPORTER: In parts
of Washington and Montana,

it lies on the ground
seven inches deep.

NARRATOR: The after-effects
would last for months.

REPORTER:
Law enforcement agencies

have one word of advice--

don't drive, don't leave home,
don't leave animals outside,

and above all, don't panic.

(horn honks)

(thud)

NARRATOR: The ash spread
across 12 states.

REPORTER: The plume of volcanic
ash has now been reported

as far east as North Dakota,

and fallout
could reach New England

in two or three days.

NARRATOR: It circled
the globe numerous times.

Closer to home, the volcano had
rearranged a whole landscape...

♪ ♪

...and transformed Spirit Lake
into a steaming cauldron.

SWANSON: Even a relatively small
volcano like Mount St. Helens,

look what it did!

NARRATOR: 200 homes gone,

200 miles of highway
and rail destroyed,

wildlife and livestock
wiped out

by the hundreds of thousands,

and forests
in a 230-square-mile area

snapped like twigs.

The eruption killed 57 people,
including logger Jose Dias,

who later died
from his injuries.

But out of this devastation,
over 130 people were rescued.

HAGERMAN: Hey!

(laughs)

Jim Scymanky!

How you doing?

SCYMANKY:
I'm doing fine, thank you.

HAGERMAN: Hey, good to see ya.
SCYMANKY: It's good to see you.

HAGERMAN: It's always
a wonderful feeling,

probably the greatest
feeling you can have,

to know that you probably
helped somebody live.

You're looking good!

SCYMANKY: Still here.

HAGERMAN: Still upright.

SCYMANKY:
I'm still upright, yeah.

HAGERMAN: Me, too!

SCYMANKY: I didn't know Jess,
but, you know,

great human being,
I know that.

Wasn't for him, I wouldn't
be here today talking, so.

CROCKETT: If I had it to do
all over again,

I would definitely go back.

It was just
the most incredible experience

I've ever lived through.

STOFFEL: We weren't sure
that we were going to make it

out of that situation at all.

For months, I really
grappled with the issue

that I was still alive,

and I told myself

that I wouldn't take life
for granted again.

BROWN: You realize
how small you are,

in the universe, in the planet.

I do my best just to enjoy life.

HICKSON: The effect
was life-changing.

I've chosen volcanology
as a career path.

Here was an event
that had almost killed me

and really, it inspired me
to learn more

about what had happened
at Mount St. Helens.

I'm thankful to be alive.

♪ ♪

NARRATOR: The 1980 eruption
of Mount St. Helens

ushered in a new era
of volcanology.

For the first time,
hundreds of images revealed

the full force
of the cataclysms

that snow-capped volcanoes
can unleash.

SWANSON: I don't think
in any other eruption

has photography
been so important,

because we didn't
have to imagine.

You can look at the photographs
and see them.

NARRATOR: Since 1980,
Mount St. Helens

has grown a new magma dome.

And in the same mountain range
in the Pacific Northwest,

there are about a dozen more
active snow-capped giants.

The tallest is Mount Rainier.

HICKSON:
Because it is very high,

has a lot of ice and snow on it,

Mount Rainier will be incredibly
dangerous when it erupts.

NARRATOR: There's no certainty

about when any of these
volcanoes will next stir.

But for the tens
of thousands of people

living in the valleys below,

the effects
will be catastrophic.

SWANSON: We volcanologists need
to continually remind the public

that these volcanoes will
erupt again in the future.