Slowly, the Wounds Begin to Heal

By Peter Stoler

A year later, lethal Mount St. Helens blossoms with life

One of the wonders--and blessings--of the world is the immense power of nature to regenerate itself, the tenacity that all life shows as it tries to heal its wounds and survive. Nowhere is this capacity more evident today than in southwestern Washington. It is just a year since Mount St. Helens exploded with a blast releasing 500 times as much energy as the bomb that leveled Hiroshima, and sending a cubic mile of earth into the air. Torrents of hot mud went coursing down the mountainside, flattening trees for miles around and turning the Toutle River into a flood of sludge that swept away several bridges. The eruption killed 34 people, demolished 178 homes and devastated hundreds of thousands of acres, much of it rich timber land. By the time the dust cleared, 150 sq. mi. of once green countryside lay lifeless, under what looked like a heavy fall of gray snow.

Those who witnessed the devastation thought the land would never recover. "It was the most awesome thing I will ever see in my life," recalls Logger Carl McCrary. "It was gray everywhere, no sign of green." Yet today animals and plants are re-establishing themselves all over the ash-blanketed countryside. Residents of the region are putting their own lives back together too.

Evidence of the volcano's power remains abundant. The high slopes are still covered with tree trunks, some more than 400 years old, some a mere seven, their roots pointing back toward the source of the shock wave that flattened them. Just below the mountain stands Coldwater Lake. A year ago, it was the highly scenic source of a creek that fed the Toutle River. Now the valley through which the Toutle flowed is blocked by a 600-ft.-tall wall of volcanic mud and debris. The lake has been slowly filling with dirty water, threatening to overflow eventually and send a torrent of mud downstream.

Above this devastation towers the still threatening mountain itself. Because the explosion literally blew the top off Mount St. Helens, its height has been reduced from 9,677 ft. to 8,300. Its shape has changed from a symmetrical, Fujiyama-like cone to a lopsided pyramid that resembles a broken tooth. Occasionally it still puffs smoke and steam.

Only two months after the eruption, small green parsley ferns and skunk cabbage were found pushing through the volcanic ash in sheltered areas along a creek on the mountain slope. Now the pink flowers of fireweed, a low-growing bush that is traditionally one of the first plants to colonize disturbed areas, have begun to add a touch of color to slopes and clear areas, still covered with ash and mud. Lupines are beginning to grow along erosion channels. Tiny fir trees, freed from competition with their fallen parents, are expected to take advantage of the extra sunlight and make a quick comeback. Scientists say that nutrients from the volcanic ash--such as phosphorus and potassium--could actually enhance their growth. As if to prove the point, some farm areas that were dusted with ash had record harvests of wheat and apples last year.

Animals are also reappearing. Pocket gophers, once regarded as pests because they eat young conifers, may prove to be man's allies: their labyrinthine burrowing improves soil aeration and helps water flow through the compacted ash. Elk and deer have been spotted around water sources in the blowdown area. Though fish are unlikely to be seen in Spirit Lake for years, bacteria and algae have colonized the lakes to become the first link in a developing food chain. The insect population was heavily damaged, but scientists are now finding ladybugs feeding on the sap of green bracken ferns, which are emerging from the ash, and armies of black ants at work in a dried mud-flow. Honey bees are hard at it among the new blossoms.

Another threatened species, Homo sapiens, appears to be re-establishing itself as tenaciously as the lichens that grow on the mountain's rocks. A few people fled the area after last year's eruption, too nervous to stay or too stunned and depressed to rebuild their disrupted lives. A handful of local loggers and their families emigrated to Alaska to avoid having to live near the volcano. But most are making money cleaning up. Tom Henderson, a foreman of a team of loggers working to salvage what might be as much as $50 million worth of downed timber for Weyerhaeuser Co., gets $11.80 an hour, plus a $6-a-day hazardous-duty bonus. So does Norm Pettit, who came from Coos Bay, Ore., because "this is the only boom area in logging in the county." Jobs with cleanup and logging crews have attracted enough newcomers to push enrollment in the Toutle school district from a pre-eruption 502 children to a current 551.

Of those people who have remained, a few show signs of delayed stress, which Therapist David Hawkins of the Lower Columbia Mental Health Center refers to as "the Mount St. Helens syndrome." Many acknowledge that the eruption produced heavy emotional fallout. "It was a kind of religious experience for many people," said one sidewalk philosopher. "A lot of people living together thought maybe there is a God and then went out and got married. When it passed, they got divorced." Some people grew cautious or suspicious. Grocer Greg Drew and some of his friends have bought radio scanners so they can monitor police and forest-service frequencies to get as much advance warning as possible of any new explosion that might occur. "We are not sure they are letting out all they know," says Drew.

A few homeowners were going to leave but canceled when the rush of tourists kept property values from plummeting. Everyone hopes to cash in this summer when an army of tourists -- officials say it may exceed 3 million -- marches in. Welby Spainhower of Ridgefield has a trailer-housed store with a view of the mountain and a stock that includes ballpoint pens filled with ash, 48 types of T shirts, and a record titled Ashfall. Clara Ottosen of Silverlake has converted a barn into a museum filled with Helenic artifacts, including the burned-out Volvo in which National Geographic Photographer Reid Blackburn was interred by a blizzard of ashes.

All are hoping, of course, that the volcano will cooperate by keeping quiet. But will it? Geologists are reluctant to forecast the future. Reconstructing last year's disaster with readings from seismographs and tiltmeters -- which measure the swelling of the earth's surface -- scientists have determined that the eruption was triggered by a magnitude5 earthquake that shook the mountain on May 18, the day of the volcano. The tremor dislodged a flank of the mountain already swollen from rising semimolten rock. A huge hunk of the mountain rumbled downhill like a great sliding door, uncovering rock saturated with compressed gases. Exposed to the air, the gases exploded. Geologists are encouraged by the fact that the lava dome that has been forming in Mount St. Helens' crater now appears to be stable, capable of serving as a cork for the mountain's bottled-up gases and the lava that is still rising. But no one will say that Mount St. Helens is ready to settle down. The mountain, says one of her geological suitors, is too much like a woman. "Just when you think you've got to know her," he says, "she changes her mind."

-- By Peter Stoler.

Reported by Joseph Kane/Mount St. Helens

With reporting by Joseph Kane

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