New Honey Hole For Old Pour Bars....

We just about have to do that, Hawk. If not, then depression would be a bigger problem. Of course, we can always head east of the Cascades to get some sun. The deserts of eastern WA and OR can be very pleasant in the fall and spring, just when a short sun-break is needed!



I agree, Hawk. We have no lack of water volume but water purification could be a problem. I can build a pretty decent sand filter that would remove dangerous particles but toxics and biologicals would require greater efforts. Having a pure and clean water supply is a must-have item in any SHTF scenario.



No, it was pretty messy back then. I remember the 1st time she blew. It was a Sunday morning... May 18th, 1980... around 0830. I was at work and felt a thump through the floor and all the glassware in the lab jingled a little bit. I called our plant control room to ask them if there were any problems in the plant. I thought at the time that there might have been a small explosion but they said that all was well. A few minutes after that, I saw this huge gray-white cloud going up in the sky to our east. It looked a lot like the smoke from a forest fire but was fairly dense and not spread out like a fire would be. About then we heard on the radio that the mountain had erupted, so that settled the issue of what was going on. The weird part was that the original blast was heard 160 miles away in Seattle but not anywhere within about 50 miles of the mountain. The sound from that supposedly created a donut type sound ring. Anyone inside the hole didn't hear it as the sound was directed upwards. Reflections off clouds and air masses of different temps reflected the sound back to the ground but farther away from the mountain than we were. The good news was that the prevailing winds at the time were from the west, so about 98% of that ash, smoke, and dust was blown towards eastern WA and ID.



Don't know about Yosemite but there is a huge super volcano under Yellowstone that could be a really nasty problem someday. The west coast would do about as well as can be done in that case. The jet-stream blows from west to east, so practically all of the dust, smoke, ash, and gas from such an eruption would hit the mid-west and eastern US. That would be the worst of times for our country for sure. Hopefully, we won't have that problem any time in the foreseeable future.

Yes, it seemed kind of odd to us too but that is what the USGS scientists who were studying the mountain said about it.

A few weeks later, we got a terrific view of the next big eruption. This was not an explosion like the 1st one because the caldera was clear of solidified rock. That was there from the previous eruption about 150 years ago. It formed a plug that prevented any additional lava or ash flow... until it blew out that is. Anyway, it was a nice day and we decided to go for a drive. We were on a road that at one point has a clear view of Mt. St. Helens, which is about 40 miles NE of us. The mountain was erupting and huge clouds of very dark ash were boiling up out of the mountain to about 60,000 feet elevation. There was a tremendous deep rumbling sound like thunder only louder. We could feel the rumbling noise inside our chests. There was the continuous flickering of lightning bolts inside the ash cloud that made a lot of yellow and red flashes. It was the most awesome sight I have ever seen and I can easily understand how primitive people may have thought that they were in the presence of an angry god at such a time. I hope not to see this ever again but if I do, I want to be a good long way off from it. We were fortunate that the prevailing wind was to the east, so none of this ash came our way. We did get a little ash from much smaller eruptions a few weeks after this but it was only about 1/4" or so.