40 years later, volcano’s eruption and characters are burned into Tacoma writer’s memory
Tacoma resident Jim Erickson marks the eruption of Mount St. Helens as the defining period of his career.
Erickson, 76, worked as a reporter at The News Tribune from 1969-1986. His beat included mountaineering and science, making him the lead reporter on the quickly unfolding story in spring 1980.
“This stuff is imprinted on my brain,” Erickson said Monday, the 40th anniversary of the eruption. “Seeing the image of St. Helens blowing and meeting all these people and interviewing them.”
Erickson is out with a book on his experiences covering the eruption. “Memories of Mount St. Helens” was published in March. The paperback tells of experiences leading up to, during and after the May 18 eruption of the volcano. It also includes new interviews with people who were part of the story in 1980.
When St. Helens woke from its 123-year slumber, it took only two months from its first swarm of earthquakes to its cataclysmic eruption.
“(The geologists) thought this is not going to go on for long,” Erickson said. “It’s going to blow out in a reasonably short amount of time. Everybody thought they were living in the shadow of death, basically, really scared and worried about what might happen there.”
Renowned for its resemblance to Japan’s Mount Fuji, St. Helens quickly developed a new crater at its summit that periodically stained its snow-covered slopes with ash.
With former News Tribune photographer Bruce Kellman, Erickson interviewed Spirit Lake lodge owner Harry Truman. Truman soon became almost as famous as the mountain for his curmudgeonly personality and refusal to leave his lodge in the face of looming danger.
“Harry was such a media darling,” Erickson said. “He was so charming and gracious to everybody. He just ate up the attention.”
Truman insisted the mountain wouldn’t blow, citing his 54-year-long residency at the mountain’s base.
“I always felt that he knew it might happen and he might be gone,” Erickson said. “But where would he rather be?”
Erickson interviewed Truman’s niece, Shirley Rosen, and others who knew him for the book.
The 84-year-old Truman would distract geology students with servings of his signature Coke and whiskey cocktail, Erickson said.
The author recalled his and Kellman’s last visit with Truman.
“He said, ‘You guys come back in a year, and we’ll laugh about this and I’ll make you a Coke high,’” Erickson said. “His 16 cats were right at our feet.”
He and his lodge were never seen again after the eruption.
As the mountain’s bulge grew with each passing day, Erickson knew an eruption was imminent. He was on a train on the morning of May 18, headed to Vancouver, Washington, the headquarters of government geologists studying the volcano.
“I knew, eventually, they’d probably suspend rail and vehicle traffic on I-5,” he said. “I made sure I was able to get on a train and get down there and be with the scientists and go wherever they went.”
Erickson watched the mountain explode from the passing train, 30 miles away.
Along with Truman and 55 others killed in the eruption was U.S. Geological Service volcanologist David Johnston. His last radio call, “Vancouver! Vancouver! This is it!” is immortalized in the region’s history.
Erickson interviewed Johnston several times in the weeks leading up to the eruption. Johnston was killed on a ridge, now the site of an observatory. Johnston, along with former Tacoma mayor and geologist Jack Hyde, was one of the few researchers that believed the mountain would blow out laterally, which it eventually did.
“He was this young guy, 30, very mature for his age,” Erickson said of Johnston.
One day in early May 1980, Johnston was addressing a group of media members at timberline on the mountain’s south flank.
“I’m standing there among the media and there were private citizens and he says, ‘This is a dangerous place to be. That northern flank is bulging. It’s going to blow out, and it’s going to hit us right here. I think you should all get in your cars and drive away.’ And you know what? Everybody did,” Erickson recalled.
Erickson interviewed one of the last people to see Johnston, hydrologist Carolyn Driedger. She wanted to camp with Johnston the night before the eruption, but he told her and two other scientists to leave because of the danger. On the trip back to Vancouver, she was startled to see game animals fleeing the mountain, Erickson said.
Following the eruption, Erickson covered the aftermath for a few years after as the mountain and its survivors adapted to a new reality.
He recalled a trip to the devastation zone to watch Weyerhaeuser timber company employees begin the first replanting of trees.
“You can’t imagine being in that devastation and suddenly you think, gee, are they really going to make it? And they have,” he said.
Those trees, Erickson said, are now old enough to be harvested for lumber.
This story was originally published May 20, 2020 at 5:00 AM.
