The story of Mad Dog and the volcano begins on March 20, 1980. At 3:47 p.m. on that day, Mount St. Helens rumbled to life with an earthquake determining 4.1 on the Richter scale. It was mainly undetected. Earthquakes typically take place in Washington State, the majority of are light enough not to be felt.
Within a week Mount St. Helens was quite in the regional Seattle location news, however by early April the mountain appeared to peaceful down once again. Then, on May 18, 1980, the sky turned black.
That spring I was working frequently as a brakeman on Burlington Northern’s South Pool Turn (Seattle-Portland). The team desk called me for swimming pool freight No. 147, working as the rear brakeman through the wee hours on the early morning of May 18. I was riding the cupola of the caboose as we launched Napavine Hill on what was appearing like the start of a stunning daybreak. At that point there was a stunning view of Mount St. Helens, I examined at the conductor and said, “Well, if it’s today we’ll never see it like that again.” I made this remark at simply previous 6 a.m. Neither I nor anybody else had any concept of the catastrophe and damage about to occur.
I was at the motel in Portland at 8:32 a.m. when the eruption took place. As I was having breakfast, a loud boom rattled the windows of the restaurant. I offered it little idea at the time. I went back to my room and went directly to bed. Waking up around 1 p.m., I switched on the television. As I waited on my eyes to focus, I saw the photo of what appeared like a big fire in Downtown Portland. Then the cam zoomed out and reality struck me. Mount St. Helens had actually been the source of that window-rattling blast. A huge landslide of its north face, luckily, the side dealing with away from Portland, released a terrible lateral surge of crushed rock, lava, and high-pressure steam taking a trip at speeds as high as 670 miles per hour.
I signed up with a couple of other railroaders on the motel’s roofing system and viewed the ash cloud drift east. It would ultimately reach 11 states. We needed to wait a number of days in Portland up until the railway had the ability to resume the primary line for traffic over the Tuttle River Bridge, simply North of Castle Rock.
Seven days later on, I was once again contacted us to work Train 147 with the exact same team. The mountain had another huge eruption while we were getting rest in Portland. When I pointed out the coincidence to my mother, Kathryn, she recommended I discover a brand-new team!
I do not remember the journey south, however when we were contacted us to work a return journey to Seattle. The railway discovered more track problems and sent us back to the motel.
A day later on we did make it out of town. We were informed that Central Traffic Control was out in between Vancouver Junction and Vader due to the fact that the ash from the mountain was now wandering northwest, combining with light rainfall, and drizzling mud that produced an insulating result on the track signal system. Every train needed to stop and hand-line every control point. I was operating at the rear end once again. We were following a Union Pacific train with another Union Pacific train behind us. The to begin with railway the switches and left them off power, we followed, and the UP train behind us had their caboose team put the switches back on power.
The most unforgettable part of the journey was the Union Pacific train bring up behind us, the UP engineer going out front with a bottle of water and attempting his finest to clear the engineer’s window. The just color in this entire scene was the UP’s headlight and the area where the wiper blade was attempting to cut through the mud to get to the window. The generally brilliant yellow engine was gray, the landscape was gray, your homes were gray, and the fields were gray. The cows, likewise gray, were taking a look at us, like, “What?”
I want I had my cam that day. It was something you needed to see to think.
