Washington state residents recently observed the twenty-year anniversary of the devastating eruption of Mt. St. Helens, the most destructive volcanic eruption ever recorded in the United States. In awesome astrological synchronicity, the names “Washington” and “Helen” were literally written in the stars when the volcano roared to life. 

The Mountain God Awakes
In the early morning hours of Sunday, May 18, 1980, most people in the communities immediately surrounding Washington's Mt. St. Helens had been evacuated. Local earthquake activity had been increasing sharply in force and frequency since March of that year, and seismologists predicted an imminent eruption. Part of the Pacific Northwest's Cascade Mountain Range, the beautiful, symmetrical "Little Fuji," named for its likeness to the famed Japanese peak, had long been the pride and playground of local residents, vacationers, campers, hikers and nature lovers. Deserted, the mountain trembled and threatened, while a few loggers and brave onlookers calculated how best to get away when the mountain finally went off. 
 

Suddenly, at 8:32 am, a magnitude 5.1 earthquake opened a vent in Mt. St. Helens, and the north face of the mountain began a massive landslide, the largest in recorded history. In a 24 megaton lateral blast, searing gas, ash and pulverized rock exploded out, vaporizing people, animals, roads and forest, and devastating over 230 square miles of Washington’s most beautiful country. The eruption continued for more than nine hours; and when it finally stopped, rivers of mud and rock flowed through a wasteland as stark and lifeless as an alien landscape. Lightning flashed in a sky darkened by the resulting giant mushroom cloud. Outlying cities were covered in flowing mud and a drift of gray ash, and very little was ever found of anyone or anything near ground zero. Fifty-seven people lost their lives. 

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