Mt. Saint Helens eruption: 46 years later | FOX 13 Seattle

Added: 2026-05-24

[00:00:00]On May 18th, 1980, 46 years ago on this day, Mount St. Helens erupted. It happened about 8:32 in the morning, and it was the deadliest and most destructive volcanic event in US history. The blast killed 57 people, destroyed 200 homes, and flattened 230 square miles of forest. It triggered the largest landslide in recorded history, causing ash to pour into the atmosphere for several hours. And since then, scientists have come a long way in monitoring our state's most active volcano. There are now 18 seismometers uh within 7 miles of Mount St. Helens. On average, they detect about 17 earthquakes a month at the mountain. So, smaller eruptions, but you wonder if that big one is going to erupt again.

[00:00:44]>> Yeah, well, experts say that uh they expect another eruption of Mount St. Helens within the next, you know, 100 to 300 years. It's the most active one in the Cascades. Interesting. I was up there in 2006 hiking Mount St. Helens, and it it was after they reopened it after it'd kind of been burping up there, you know? Right. And sure enough, we're up there at the you know, top of the rim, and we're looking down, and we felt an earthquake. And we start running down the side of the mountain, and it was it was like steaming, you know?

[00:01:13]>> Yeah. Releasing gas. Oh my god.

[00:01:15]>> Scared us really >> [laughter] >> bad.

[00:01:17]>> Yeah. But we got some great pictures.

[00:01:18]I'll tell you >> got a good workout.

[00:01:19]>> Got a good workout. Yeah, got some great pictures. Uh so, let's talk about St. Helens. 1980, of course, 46 years ago.

[00:01:26]57 people died in that explosion uh that should say. And the big thing was the volcanic ash. It surged 80,000 ft up into the atmosphere. It blocked out the sun in some spots like Yakima. Uh inches of ash were were found in in spots like Pullman, and Spokane got hit really hard as well. All depended on the direction of the wind. But, of course, we had those little lahars as well. So, that is something we'll be watching with this mountain that you