Mt. St. Helens blast 40 year anniversary

WHITMAN COUNTY – Kristal Krom Kirpes, then a freshman at Eastern Washington University, took a trip home to Dusty on the Walla Walla Highway for the weekend to celebrate her 20th birthday. What she didn't know then was that she was going to share her birthday with the eruption of Mount St. Helens.

On Sunday, May 18, 1980, Mount St. Helens erupted, being dubbed the most destructive volcanic eruption in U.S. history.

"While dad, mom, my sister and I were outside on our patio celebrating my birthday, the sky turned to an eerie gray, the birds stopped chirping and Uncle Ben's horses became unusually restless in the pasture next to our house," Kirpes said. "Not long after, the ash began to fall."

A lateral blast shot superheated gas and rock debris destroying everything within eight miles and then a second vertical blast spewed ash and gases more than 12 miles into the air. It was estimated that more than 540 million tons of ash drifted up to 2,200 square miles reaching over seven states.

Two to four inches of ash covered Whitman County, looking like a blanket of snow.

Kirpes spent the early morning, when ash first began to fall, making roller skate tracks in the ash on the sidewalk in her new pair of skates she got for her birthday.

In the May 22, 1980, issue of the Colfax Gazette, then County Commissioners Dan Boone and James Henning shared the effect the ash had on their crops.

Commissioner Boone said he believed his peas near Pullman will survive and most of the wheat in the area would have little effect. Although Commissioner Henning, who lived in Sunset, and received a heavier deposit of ash, said he doubts the winter wheat would be able to come back, being downed by the weight of the ash.

"We spent the rest of the day inside the house listening to the news on TV and radio but mostly watching everything outside becoming heavily covered in a blanket of ash," Kirpes said. "We watched dim headlights of vehicles creep along the highway as the ash continued to come down that day, hoping they would reach their destination safely."

There were more than 600 stranded tourists passing through the Palouse when the eruption occurred. Many of those stranded found refugee at Colfax High School where meals and sleeping arrangements were provided.

Kirpes said on her birthday she received a call from a friend at EWU informing her that classes had been canceled for the next week.

"She said she was envious that I was going to be eating home-cooked dinners with my family while she would be stuck in a dorm room," Kirpes said. She said she decided not to tell her friend about her birthday surprises and food or being on a farm for a week sounded a lot better than being in a dorm.

"The only thing my newly 20-year-old mind hadn't thought about yet was that the ash needed to be cleaned up and cleared," Kirpes said. "May 18, 1980, was a day we'd never experienced before, and neither was May 19, when we all began the clean-up for weeks to come of my 20th birthday celebration eruption."

The main method of cleanup was referred to as "wet and scrape". According to the May 22, 1980, issue of the Colfax Gazette, water trucks sprayed the streets while store owners and volunteers hosed dust from the sidewalks onto the street. Graders were then planned to come and pick up the mud.

Forty-eight National guardsmen were assigned to Colfax to help with cleanup efforts.

"Over the years, I've often teased and said how amazing it was for Mom and Dad to have arranged for a mountain to erupt and make my 20th birthday so memorable," Kirpes said.

In an effort to educate and remember, The Budding Rose Art Gallery in Rosalia will have a Mount St. Helens Exhibit. Due to COVID-19, visitors won't be able to enter the gallery. Instead, the gallery has been put on display on the outside windows for the whole month of May.

The Budding Rose is a non-profit gallery for kids that opened in 1999.