Mt.+St.+Helens

On May 18, 1980 at 8:32 am, the Earth shook. For a Century Mt. St. Helens had been asleep. But this day, was one of the worst. The whole mountain shook and was so intense that the North side of the side of the Mountain slid off. The smoke and ash climbed up over 80,000 feet up into the sky. People and animals ran for their lives. Thousands of animals were killed either by being thrown off the mountain, being buried alive in the ash or later breathing in the harmful vapors and dying. 57 People died in the Eruption of Mt. St. Helens, it's up to us now to study our Earth harder and just maybe we can predict these diasasters in the future hopefully... The Mountain past is a different story. Native Americans that lived in the area had a name for the Moutain, it was called Louwala-Clough for Smoking Moutain. As the Indians lived places near the Volcano from 1831 to 1857 it was pretty active but after that it went into sleep. It was dormant for about 140 years. The moutain probably began to grow around 40,000 years ago because of the ash we have found in rock. This volcanoes life was on and off randomly staying active for up to 15000 years to about 200. There was also a big explosion in 1800 and besides that one, the one in the Spring of 1980 has been the biggest. It has been the biggest Volcano eruption in the History of the United States. Besides killing so many people, it destroyed about 250 houses, up to 15 miles of railroads too. It was the most costly and deadly, the estimated cost of this diasaster was 3 Billion. This Volcano has a cone shape because of the eruptions size. It blew the whole side off and caused it to slide down and the width of the landslide was just about a mile wide. It caused the elevation of the mountain to go from 9,677 down to 8,365. The crater inside is a mile wide. This volcano is still to this day active. It is in fact the most active here. We turned it into a spot where scientists can do tests on it, but we don't have a e.t.a. on when it could erupt again. But we have to pay attention to the Moutain, Scientists all around have all kinds of things monitering it's sleep. In October, on a Friday the Moutain "Hiccuped". What that is, is when there is a small Earthquake and the mountain throws out a lot of steam and ash. it sent a plume about 10,000 feet up and traveled about 6 miles. But what worried the scientists the most besides the hiccup was that lava oozed out. Which means that it has the potential to erupt again, but bigger. We don't know how big the next eruption could be, or when. It could be bigger than the last, when that one was equal to 20,000 Hiroshima size atomic bombs, or 400 Million tons of TNT, and instead of laying down 150 miles of forest in about 6 minutes, it could do twice or more. It could be today, tomorrow, anytime. Pretty much all we can do now is just keep monitering and monitering these Volcanos, improving out warnings systems, making shelters in advance and waiting and just being prepaired.