Monday marks 40 years since Mount St. Helens erupted but even though four decades have passed, nearby communities are still at risk of catastrophic flooding.
@@Mustang_Dan The volcano blasted all those trees out of the ground with 600 degree pyroclastic flow and you think they would have branches left after that? lol
@@matthewbehr5725 sure looks like it. But I gather someone named Dan was asserting that the trees were from something other than the eruption. Apparently Dan figured out how wrong he was and deleted his comments lol ...
@@aaronsmeal1904 That's not how volcanoes or earthquakes work. Isolated systems. Volcanoes only create Magmatic Quakes. Not Seismic ones. Violent enough Volcanoes can however rupture fault lines but, very rare.
If one chooses to live on a flood plain or a slope of a volcano, one must expect disasters. and either have a plan for dealing with them or better, moving permanently.
@@quackula9190 Yes personal responsibility seems to be increasingly rare these days. Perhaps we should insist on making the Legislature control these things, since they seem to be trying to control everything, perhaps they can legislate away volcanic eruptions as well. We should have the tar and feathers ready for these omnipotent beings who think they can legislate every thing, should they fail.
I could not have said this any better than you did and let’s not forget any kind of insurance that someone gets will be under written by the taxpayer plus what about all the construction done to protect these people that also was paid for by the taxpayers and of course will some family member or some survivors sue the government or sue the contracted individual for damages if a disaster again happens and of course the tax pair will always be on the hook
I went to Spirit lake with my family summer vacation to the North West in 1978 2 years before I was 12 years old. It looked like any mountain lake with so many trees around it. Today looking at it is like back then was a dream of something that never existed because there is just nothing left that even looks the same.
Reminds me of California communities built in forests that regularly burn, which necessitates immense resources to battle fires and rescue people. And on a lighter note, all the people who live in deserts like Arizona, requiring tons of fresh water, and they give themselves green grasses and flowers which can't natively grow there. Technology makes people so dense.
Just a bit of research will show that Arizona has been successfully moving to non-grass landscapes with native vegetation. Drive through Phoenix neighborhoods and you see rock and gravel yards with cactus and shrubs. Water in Arizona is too expensive to have a lawn.
@Elizabeth Frantes Idk I was just in Windsor and all I saw were roasted oak and maple trees. What you're saying may be true in the LA area but it's not up North, there is so much growth happening here and then it dies in late summer and just burns. Every single time.
Even worse: How about building houses in steep, hilly areas, where it's extremely difficult to pump water uphill, and nearly impossible for fire trucks to reach? Check out the documentary, "Design for Disaster." It is based on the massive Bel Air fire in 1962. The thesis blames the destruction mostly on poor planning, for having built houses in the worst possible place.
The short sightedness of this project is revealed by the fact that the fastest growing glacier in the world is inside the crater of MSH. An eruption could happen at any moment that would create a lahar who’s only path would travel downstream via the North Fork of the Toutle River. This tunnel outfall update is just another bandaid. The money would be better spent buying high risk downstream properties and turning them into enhanced floodplain reserves within Mt. St. Helens National Monument jurisdiction.
Don't try to use logic and common sense when trying to convince bureaucratic engineers from changing their minds. They must spend all of their budget or face cuts during the next appropriations cycle.
Not sure if you watched it, but it'll definitely be a concern for communities down stream. Imagine surviving a 9.0 and unsuspectingly taking on a wall of flood debris.
@@willcruz7457 I think he was talking about how there will be a lot worse results from a 9.0 earthquake in the area. Not just Lahars. Potential Volcanic activity, pyroclastic flows, and amospheric ash for months. Thats just one. You would wish the floods took you out.
Keys879, a severe earthquake in the Cascades is unlikely to cause volcanic eruptions. If any of those volcanoes erupt, they’ll do it on their own time. A 9.0 quake would cause widespread devastation, but it wouldn’t cause other natural disasters other than debris flows, city fires, and a likely tsunami.
Dutch are humans too, building a damn to protect from water is not something to brag about, its not a contest, the earth is a very unstable planet, nature happens.
Yes! People are talking about a Cascadia quake more often now! I did my senior research paper on an eventual magnitude 9 quake in the Pacific Northwest. Ugh, seismology and volcanology are so interesting!
I'm getting a degree in geology focusing on Volcanology and you are correct sir. Volcanology is super interesting. I also found that people have no clue what their environment is around them.
Diveing in this lake would be nuts. Logs of all sizes on the surface & bottom. And half sunk logs standing or hanging in every angle possible. I wonder about the lakes depth and clarity before & now. I was 12 then and will never forget our campground in McGregor Minnesota was covered in a greyish gritty dust for the whole summer. Couldn't picnic. But the colors of the sunsets & sunrises was like nothing we see lately.
I drove past Mt St. Helens the night before it erupted, hard to think that 40 years have passed. I remember seeing the interview with Harry Truman on tv, I thought at the time he was being foolish, thinking he could survive that force.
Let nature do what it was meant to do, it would’ve reconnected with the Toutle River and went back natural, but just like with everything we try to “fix” things and then it ends up worse. Even if we fix it and disturb this area we are just buying time before the lake and Mother Nature does what it does best.
When the Cascadia Subduction Fault earthquake takes place and the tsunami destroys all of the coastal infrastructure, a flash flood from Spirit Lake taking out the I-5 and railroad bridges between Vancouver and Olympia will be just another small event in the chain of disasters. It will be terrible for the people who live in the path of the flood and for those who get cut off from the outside, but they will be only a small group among a couple million other victims. Dig down through the easily eroded layers and down to the more solid rock debris and build a control structure. Then open the channel between there and the lake and let the water through. The control gates can drain the lake down to the more solid layers and then be removed to allow the outlet stream to slowly cut down to the original level. That is what they did at Earthquake Lake on the Madison River after the 1959 Hebgen Lake earthquake. The people of Washington and the Forest Service have to stop thinking that Spirit Lake should be preserved at all costs.
Yeah don't get how that seems to be such a mind bender for some people. "We're worried about our homes and families." Well if you hadn't built your house on nature's equivalent of an airport runway that would really wouldn't be an issue.
From a Native, so called primitive point of view: Humans are not the masters of the land, of the seas, of the sky or of volcanoes. You better dont fool around in sacred places, as is the Spirit Lake. Simply leave it alone.
As Boy Scouts we camped Spirit Lake an each troop made tents sites better, cutting steps up hill sides to favorite sites each year! Mt. St. Helens could have erupted an we all been dust in the wind! But I watched it blow from my Oregon City streets view point. Then later while sweeping ash off roof I watched Air force One fly overhead viewing damage!
Thanks for the information I do remember May 18th 2020 Mt. Saint Helen s really was a beautiful mountain Such a pity it was destroyed by a massive volcanic eruption in February 1980 I was visiting The Pacific Northwest I saw Mt. Saint Helen s in it s full shape for the last time By the way you folks up there Have a happy 2023
Thank you! Finally I see someone acknowledge something I remembered from my childhood but is never addressed in the videos about MSH. I remember it “began” in February. I lived in Vancouver, Wa and my family watched the evening news every single night. There had been some activity on MSH and then one night my sister and I were awoken by a very loud sound and then the room started shaking. I was on the top bunk and thought the sound was that of a bat that “somehow” got into our upstairs bedroom. It sounding like the furious beating of large wings banging into the walls or window or something. When it was over, our mom hollered up the stairs, asking if we were alright (we were only 6 and 9, btw). I said, “there’s a bat in our room!” She informed us that it was an earthquake from MSH. Things progressed pretty quickly with the mountain after that. Anyway, so many stories forget that a lot was going on with the mountain in the few short months before the May 18th eruption. We are lucky if they acknowledge that we had some pretty good “eruptions” (that’s how we referred to them) before that date and some more afterward as well.
Well if the environment up there is so fragile, just get a bunch of activist university students together and cancel the earthquake. That's how things work up there right?
@@evilsharkey8954 what infrastructure would that be? The old tunnel? A 9 earthquake would make short work of it anyway and the lake would do the rest. That lake is not man made so there is no infrastructure.
9.0 earthquake in central Washington? The only place where that might happen is the subduction zone off the coast. It would shake the Helen's region but nothing to worry about. Spirit Lake was raised 200 feet! Of course it will overflow that little slide area. But a tsunami on the coast from a 9.0. Now that's something to worry about.
David Mayhew, they can worry about more than one thing. I would hope geologists on the coast are trying to work on projects to quickly get people above a tsunami water line and changing building codes to be mega earthquake compliant so that by the time it happens, most buildings are better protected. It’s not imminent. It could be tomorrow, or it could be another 200 years.
Matt Carroll, Japan occasionally gets orphan tsunamis, where there’s a tsunami but no earthquake. One lines up, timewise, with the last major Cascade earthquake, which the indigenous people told stories of and had left high water marks on the Pacific coast.
maintain the lake at extremely low levels or drain it entirely. you can't have the lake full and have it secure in a 9 pointer. Nothing we can build is certain to withstand an earthquake of that magnitude.
It is impressive what volcanoes look like when they erupt. It might seem that they are freeing themselves of something that obstructs them inside (although I know that it is not like that, just metaphor)
That’s exactly how the Northwest volcanoes work actually. They erupt, they slowly rebuild their peaks and glaciers, and when the peak becomes so heavy and large after about 300 years of this that the magma and gas constantly bubbling up from the melted subducting plate can no longer vent, it goes boom-boom again. St. Helens may have started growing again from small steam eruptions depositing small amounts of lava in the caldera, while regenerating its shadow-protected glacier, but its next eruption (touch wood) won’t be until the 24th century or something.
I was 14 when that thing popped. As a 54 year old seeing ttuis brought back some crazy memories. Most notably, Mr Harry Truman's outright defiance to leave his property. He is my spirit animal!
I agree with the people commenting, this is a huge waste of money. I am sure there are other lakes to go visit, these millions of dollars should go towards something that isn't a stopgap low value project.
Wood doesn’t rot if it’s completely dry, or completely wet. The only place where rot occurs is where the water line meets the air. But considering the logs were blasted by the volcano it may even be petrified to some extent. But they will probably be there another 40 years. There are wood logs holding up the foundations of New Orleans that are hundreds of years old because they are submerged below the waterline.
I'm gonna bet that once that road is re-created on the current route of the Truman Trail, there'll be a campaign to build a two-lane highway to connect it to Highway 504 at Coldwater Lake... Followed by development of resorts, private cabins, McDonalds, Starbucks, etc.
Too bad that wouldn't be legal considering that entire area is a National Monument, but go off anyway despite the facts telling you that wouldn't be possible.
" at all costs we have to keep that from happening again'...says who? Why do some humans feel so entitled that it is their duty to control nature? So strange how some of create beauty and try to live in harmony and some want to control, to shape to their own will and needs... strange
We've become so arrogant to believe we run the Earth, when in fact it is the Earth who runs us. But it does not matter, we can brag and lie as much as we want. She will ultimately have the last laugh. Nature is forever.
@@leifharmsen we only can build things on the surface of the earth. There is much we dont control.. like the earth core ecpanding and continents shifting. The resultant floods, quakes and freaky lightning storms are just the beginning of what we dont control. Im curious as to what else could possibly happen before the cycle is complete. Many other major events in history has been matched with solar, climate, tree rings, rock layers/sediment, glass bead formation, and fossils. So other events are more explainable, and tells us what to expect.
I watched this believing they were planning something useful. But, if there is ever an earthquake that powerful, I don’t think Spirit Lake will be most problematic result. This seems to be another “busy work” project to keep jobs open.
Anytime government tells you they can protect you from a natural disaster the first thing I think is this is an attempt to spend money and the second thing I think that people will have a false sense of safety move back into the area and eventually if not lose their homes possibly lose their lives mother nature is never denied and of course if you buy flood insurance under these conditions the taxpayer ends up footing the bill all the time
If a 9.0+ quake hits the area, almost all of the first responder/FEMA/emergency response resources will be directed to dealing with the 650,000 people in Portland. This will be the least of their concerns.
I wonder what happened to the public access corridor to the North Toutle. It is sad to see a vast recreational area locked down. I just don't think that was why the new road was built. Today, the facilities which remain open to the public are in an obvious state of disrepair.
We're talking a completely different scenario had it blown straight out the top - unfortunately it blew sideways directly at the lake and valley. Can't recall such a lopsided eruption (of this type).
Literally no one thinks that this will be the only problem when the big one happens. I really don't know how anyone could possibly be such a pathetic moron as to think that's what the implication of this story was. Get a grip.
@John Johnson Are you joking? You realize that multiple 9.0 or larger earthquakes have occurred around the world in the last century and that many man made structures have survived them? I swear to god, RU-vid comments are the absolute bottom barrel of society. You people are legitimately such morons that I honestly do not know how you even manage to function without a caretaker.
If it goes off again, they haven’t mention the millions of gallons of water that would melt down from the center glacier. The lake will flood no matter what they try and do, it’s inevitable.
Alexander Clarke yup! The glacier inside Mount St. Helens surprisingly has regrown despite global warming. All that ice near the top will melt. Even in a minor eruption all that fragmented glacial ice will crack again and melt down the mountain. Horrible lahar risk
Apparently in addition to Harry’s home it also had boating, a tourist lodge he owned, a gorgeous scout summer camp that probably used its once-pristine water for the swim-tests and aquatic merit badges, and it had landlocked trout and salmon. And to think that it’s now a charcoal-covered pit of ruin filled with toxic gases from the lava, and that all of these lovely things are now gone. Reduced to atoms.
After the Mount Saint Helens 1980 exploded, the FBI and the Army locked off big parts Land around the rest of this Vulcan. Why? 2 Ex-Soldiers reported why. A number of Sasquatch were injured and burned. The too heavily injured and burned ones got the coup de grace. The other ones were helped by the medics. Two soldiers reported their ordered participation on this incident. You can find there story reported almost 40 years later. Because they had the order not to speak about for 30 years. Even in northern Europe we have this creatures. Especially in Sweden. Greetings from LINZ/AUSTRIA 🇦🇹🏔🏔🍺🛶🥨🇦🇹 EUROPE!
I strongly suspect this disinformation from Wolfy is designed by space aliens from the planet Zoltan who don’t want you to know they caused the eruption to destroy their arch enemy Vulcan headquarters under Harry Truman’s lodge and now are trying to control all major world governments, e.g. the orange haired freak in the whitehouse, putan, xi jinxing, macron, Johnson - and even the Portland city council and mayor. Please be sceptical and on guard for liars, idiots, and the ignorant, which are almost everyone at one time or another.
@@j-maxfromor1895 Dear Sir! Please google for this and You will find evidence. Even in northern Europe we have those creatures. Look on RU-vid under „Searching for Swedish Bigfoot 1 - 3 and You will be surprised what is really going on here on earth. I hitch hiked 1984 for from Sidney tho Rockhampton and further to Cairns and first we came through the Blue Mountains. On a resting place the driver saw huge footprints in the wet sand and said „Oh my god a Yowie“! As a young man from central Europe I had no idea what this was. He got pale in his face and told me to get in the car very quick and he drove with a speed with me away. That was no prank on me because this gentleman was shaken. I could see that and he spoke no word for longer time. Later I saw a sign beside the road with „Bigfoot“ written on it. Later he explained me what this kind of creature this is. I didn’t first believe him but later I could find more out about this aggressive creature. In Australia so many people disappear every year in their national parks an jungles or forests. It’s incredible. Since 1984 I am because if this interested on this topic. In northern Europe they call those creatures „Hairy wild man“ and those come more and more further south and even in Poland they have been seen too. Thank god they are not aggressive here. If You really ned true information just go to the next Indian tribe in the USA and ask the. All tribes had their encounters with Sasquatch. I was very often from my country Austria in Sweden and was talking to the people there about this subject and a hunter explained to me that even around the city of Katerineholm in southern Sweden those creatures are living in the forests. In Russia they called them Almasty and the government has a professor who is inventing to this subject. If You like look on RU-vid for „Dixie Cryptid“ and for „how to hunt“. Those are the most serious sources in the USA for this topic. I am a old sergeant major in a tank brigade in Austria and believe me. I am not a dreamer. Dears sincerely! Wolfgang Josef GUGELWEITH! Greetings from Arnieland Austria 🇦🇹🏔⛷🛶🍺🥨🐺!
In 1980 when St. Hellen’s blew, I was @Lowell elementary school in Tacoma,Wa. Now in 4/21 I live in South Kelso Washington where I 🔻NEED to be mindful because I am only 3.5 block’s from the #Cowlitz river, and when the Mtn. blew back in 1980, our entire neighborhood was under water because the river overran it’s bank’s, so if the mountain blow’s again, I have to gather our 8 cat’s & 2 Chuweenie’s and head for higher ground!🥺🙀
when a Cascadia quake occurs the flooding from that would be one really small part of the big picture they would be better off purchasing the property down stream and just getting everyone out of the way
I often wonder where old Harrys final resting place is amongst all that. Is he hundreds of feet under dirt or under the lake. Sadly we will never know. I really don't think he expected it to even get to his home.
So many people chose to ignore warnings about an imminent eruption and stayed or visited the area around Mt.St. Helen, but you know, freedom.... Sound familiar?
I'm not sure why they're are so worried about the environmental impact of putting a road along the northern flank of Mt St Helens. Given the topography of the current caldera. It's most likely that the next eruption will environmentally impact the area far greater than a silly logging/construction road.
@@evilsharkey8954 Actually the issue is that the gov't spends your tax dollars in inappropriate ways. Typically it's diverted to whatever the big corporations want, which is why no matter how much you vote to give money to schools or other causes, you just see the same story in 18 months on the news: "...if the schools JUST had more money..." Then, fast forward to when all those kids finish high school, how much tax payer money was spent? How much is that HS diploma worth? Oh now they have to spend even MORE money to have any viable skills in the job market. The public is fleeced in the process as really the schools are just ONE example of a way to tax citizens while pretending to provide public benefit. Most areas spend >$10,000 per kid, per year. Think about how much time/money is wasted after 13 years, and now they have to go get into student loan debt? So this is just ONE example of how gov't mind F's you and the rest of the public into thinking "if we just gave them more money." Here's another: In 1997, the USFS came up with the Trail parking Demonstration fee program, later to become the trail parking pass. It started out at $20 per year, park at any USFS maintained trailhead. Then fast forward, after 20+ years of this, how many trials are maintained or new ones built? Very few, in fact, many have gone the other direction. So, you have to take a more objective, less EMOTIONAL approach to decision making, trust me, it'll help you become a better decision maker. Now, is this whole thing on Spirit Lake true, probably, is it's a problem? Yes, but it is a major priority among hundreds of other bigger more pressing issues? No. When you solve problems, you need to prioritize based upon likelihood, time, cost. Right now the USFS chooses to spend money on worthless crap, and there's no incentive for the poor decision making to end. If or when you DO actually get them to comment, they blame whatever administration is in place on the executive branch at the time, so it's not a D vs R thing, it's a Government has Big Corporations as the primary priority in mind at all times. Funny how Big corps get bailouts instantly, and then when it comes to helping anyone else: "oh...well we need to think about that..." and as always, the majority of the public drops back into retardation
07wrxtr1, that’s why we need to push for campaign finance reform, government accountability, ranked choice voting, and non-partisan redistricting. If we can establish those at the local and state level, there will be evidence of effectiveness that can be applied to the whole country. In the meantime, pick candidates in primaries who are less about partisan goals and more about good governance. Unfortunately, we didn’t get any such candidates for the presidential election. Maybe we’ll get lucky, and the virus will make both p*ssy grabbing pigs so sick they have to drop out so we can get better choices.
@@evilsharkey8954 Agreed; It's sad and frustrating that there's just little/no representation for 99% of people, but most are under the illusion that there is if they "just" pick the right candidate, which is useless when that candidate isn't on a ballot or doesn't have enough money to run an effective campaign. With this whole economic bust happening right now, just look around as the big corps are going to get bigger, and the small/medium sized businesses are either going away completely or will have to re-organize via a chapter 11 situation, thus resulting in less jobs overall. Even worse is that we as consumers and workers have really only two choices: a) starve to death by not having a job at a big corporation or spending money at one, or b) work for and/or spend money at big corporations. Don't even get me started on stock bybacks. I wish the millenials would really go after the rich execs that ran corporations into the ground instead of 168 "gender identities" or other bs made up "issues". It's really sad that the millenials are both intelligent and retarded at the same time.
They are just about out of time. This thing is going to blow in a few very short years and if they plan to fix this, they had better step on the gas...
Life is full of complex problems that many reduce to black and white terms for which they tend to spend their time ranting at others about how stupid they are. They have no interest in solving those problems. They just need to feel right.
Here's a novel fucking idea...Let nature do what it's supposed to do...Maybe if they didn't have that tunnel the overflow would make a stream bed that connects back to the Toutle and it would all balance itself back out?
@@davidlafleche1142 Very. On the plus side, however, people now think 80s music was Devo, Talking Heads, and Duran Duran and not Billy Ocean, Barbara Streisand, and Alabama.
Mt. Saint Helens is not dead yet. With 40+ volcanos just recently starting to erupt all around the world. We easily se Mt Saint Helens and even Mt. Ranier blow their tops as well. As well as those in California. Never say never.
