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The 1980's
Natural Disasters
 The 1980 Eruption of Mount St. Helens

The 1980 Eruption of Mount St. Helens
Reading Level
     edHelper's suggested reading level:   grades 5 to 7
     Flesch-Kincaid grade level:   6.52

Vocabulary
     challenging words:    magnitude, oneself, tourist, repeated, sulfur, billion, zone, eyewitness, serene, resistance, greatly, magma, helicopter, account, evacuation, landscape
     content words:    Native Americans, Mount St, Captain George Vancouver, British Ambassador, Lord St, Cascade Range, Pacific Northwest, Pacific Ring, Pacific Ocean, Washington State

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The 1980 Eruption of Mount St. Helens
By Joyce Furstenau 		  
1     Before white settlers arrived, the Native Americans considered Mount St. Helens a sacred place. The mountain was given several names by the local natives including Tah-one-lat-clah ("Fire Mountain") and Loo-wit ("Keeper of the Fire"). Captain George Vancouver spotted the mountain and named it after his friend, the British Ambassador to Spain, Lord St. Helens.
 
2     Mount St. Helens is one of several volcanic peaks that make up the Cascade Range in the Pacific Northwest. It is part of the Pacific Ring of Fire found on both sides of the Pacific Ocean. It is located in Washington State about fifty miles north of Portland, Oregon and ninety-six miles south of Seattle. It was once the fifth highest peak in Washington. Its appearance was compared to Mount Fuji in Japan. Melting snow from the mountain emptied into serene Spirit Lake at its base. Streams from the mountain also fed three main river systems: the Toutle, the Lewis, and the Kalama rivers.
 
3     Earthquake activity was first detected in March of 1980. Thousands of small earthquakes signaled the volcano was awakening. A bulge on the north side of the mountain was growing. Eruptions of steam were seen nearly every hour that month. Government officials set up a ten-mile "red zone" around the area to limit tourist activity. By May of 1980, Mount St. Helens began to tremble.
 
4     On May 18, 1980, the tranquil beauty of Mount St. Helens was shattered. Volcanologist David Johnston was on duty at his monitoring station about six miles away.
 
5     "Vancouver! Vancouver! This is it!" were his last words at around 8:21 A.M. on the morning of May 18. An earthquake with a magnitude of 5.1 had cut loose the mountain's north slope. Johnson had witnessed the largest landslide in recorded history. The mixture of earth, ice, snow, and water created mudflows that rushed down the mountain at 150 m.p.h. The once pristine Spirit Lake was filled with a mountain of mud and ash. The mudflows traveled fourteen miles along the north fork of the Toutle River. Toppled and sheared fir trees looked like giant toothpicks strewn across a gray landscape.

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