Mount St. Helens: The Morning the Mountain Fell | After the Eyecatch

On May 18, 1980, the north flank of Mount St. Helens collapsed, unleashing a lateral blast and an eruption whose effects extended far beyond the mountain. This episode of After the Eyecatch follows the warning signs, the landslide, the blast, the ash and river hazards, rescue efforts, and the landscape that emerged afterward. Archival motion footage, photographs, clearly dated later monitoring footage, time-lapses and satellite imagery accompany an account drawn from USGS, U.S. Forest Service and official rescue records. A note on the images: Don Swanson's May 18 film was recorded approximately 9:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. It does not show the initial 8:32 a.m. collapse. Later monitoring, dome-growth and landscape images are identified by date. Where individual recording dates are unknown, the film-publication year is identified instead. All May 18 clock times are local Pacific Daylight Time. CHAPTERS 00:00 The mountain moves 01:47 The shape people knew 03:40 The warning begins underground 05:23 A mountain pushed outward 07:00 Warnings and their limits 08:50 Sunday morning 10:37 The largest moving pieces 12:23 The blast goes sideways 14:09 The eruption keeps going 15:55 A mountain carried by the wind 17:49 The danger follows the rivers 19:33 Rescue in a changed landscape 21:25 The disaster that stayed in place 23:17 Life did not return from zero 25:09 The mountain continues 27:02 What the missing mountain tells us PRIMARY SOURCES USGS: 1980 Cataclysmic Eruption https://www.usgs.gov/volcanoes/mount-st.-h... USGS: Eruptive history of Mount St. Helens https://pubs.usgs.gov/fs/2005/3045/ USGS: Don Swanson's May 18, 1980 film https://www.usgs.gov/media/videos/mount-st... U.S. Forest Service: Ecological research at Mount St. Helens https://research.fs.usda.gov/pnw/projects/... USGS: Renewed volcanic activity, 2004–2008 https://www.usgs.gov/volcanoes/mount-st.-h... Washington National Guard: Rescue and response https://www.nationalguard.mil/News/Article... PRODUCTION AND RIGHTS The original documentary narration is not a historical recording or the voice of a participant. The original instrumental score was created for this episode. Every source soundtrack is excluded, including archival speech, source-film music and narration. No synchronized original eruption sound is claimed. Agency material is credited for factual documentary use; no agency endorsement is implied. VISUAL CREDITS USGS: Don Swanson; Harry Glicken; Lyn Topinka; David Frank; Peter Lipman; Tom Casadevall; Cascades Volcano Observatory staff; Don Becker and Matthew Logan (Instrumentation and Dome Growth); Stephen M. Wessells (A Catalyst for Change); Angie Diefenbach and Liz Westby (UAS film, with source images credited to Peter Kelly and Laura Clor); Amberlee Darold, Peter Kelly, Rebecca Kramer and Liz Westby (gas-monitoring film). NASA Goddard Space Flight Center / Matthew R. Radcliff: 40 Years of Forest Recovery, Landsat visual excerpts only. Landsat: NASA / USGS. NOAA / NESDIS: GOES-3 visible and infrared satellite time-lapses, May 18, 1980. U.S. Forest Service, Pacific Northwest Region: Yakima ash photograph and Matthew Tharp's 2012 lupine photograph. Washington National Guard archives / DVIDS: Mike Cairns and Sue Nystrom rescue photograph. The original photographer is not established. Full used-image sources, individual credits, dates and reuse restrictions are supplied in the episode's credits and production-notes files. Selected imagery from mixed-rights source films is visual-only; their third-party music is not reused. #MountStHelens #Volcano #Documentary