Cities choked by inches of ash

Mount St. Helens Eruption 25 Year Anniversary Moses Lake recalls its response to the effects of Mount St. Helens eruption

MOSES LAKE — Sunday, May 18, 1980 couldn't have looked like a better day at 7:30 a.m. for Moses Lake city councilman Steve Shinn and his wife to tether up for a hot air balloon ride.

The morning started out as a perfect day in sunny Moses Lake without hardly any breeze, Shinn recalled. He and his wife headed out to McCosh Park where hours later lightning and big, dark, rolling clouds would soon dominate the skyline shortly after the 8:32 a.m. eruption of Mount St. Helens.

"No one knew it was that serious," said Shinn, who, after about a 20-year break from his duties as councilman, was re-elected in November 2001.

A 5.1 earthquake collapsed the north face of the mountain that day, causing a disastrous rock debris avalanche that flattened 230 square miles of forest and raised a plume of ash thousands of feet into the air that would eventually make its way to Eastern Washington and beyond.

With the passing of hours and days, Shinn remembers the smell of sulfur that permeated the air mixed in with what could be likened to a snowfall of ash covering the city.

At that point, "people are starting to get a little panicky," Shinn said.

What many including Shinn thought would be a celebration of the anticipated event would, in a matter of a few hours, leave cars stranded on Interstate 90, schools closed early for the year, bare shelves at area grocery stores and several businesses shut down.

Shinn remembers residents making special trips to retail stores just to buy T-shirts in commemoration of the anticipated event.

However, even short trips to the store would soon turn hazardous as speed limits above 10 mph would send clouds of dust and ash into the air, clogging air filters and delaying emergency personnel.

Those who dared venture out on the roads at speeds above 10 mph in Moses Lake were ticketed, Shinn said.

Back at City Hall, regular discussions of downtown revitalization and bringing more business into Moses Lake came to a halt as the eruption of Mount St. Helens soon took priority.

"Nobody knew how to address this problem," Shinn said of the ash fallout that would prove to be a test of the city's ability to organize resources and respond to an emergency.

Such a high responsibility is one that Shinn said showed the strength and leadership of many Moses Lake residents and city officials, including then acting city manager Joe Gavinski.

Gavinski played a significant part in organizing local resources "so we could get back to normal," Shinn said.

And in Shinn's perspective it was Gavinski's role in clean up efforts after the eruption, a historic event that cost the city huge amounts of money in an already burdened economy, that would earn him the position of city manager on July 8, 1980.

"It was a hard thing," Shinn said. "The city stood up to the fact that we needed to solve the problem."

That included not only city officials and members of the National Guard which came to help, but residents who volunteered their time.

Some, like Mary Cunnington, set up shelters to provide food and other resources for those in need while others helped clean the ash-ridden streets with fire hoses and sprinkler pipes.

"We leap-frogged down Broadway," Shinn said of the volunteer and city efforts to wash the ash away in four-block increments. "The neat thing was that everyone was pitching in."

Finding a place to put the ash was another matter.

It was dumped in low lying areas, Shinn recalls, such as near the site of the current Fairchild Cinemas and the Japanese Gardens in Moses Lake where the ash that came to the city 25 years ago can still be seen today.

"When you see white along the side of the road, that's ash," Shinn said.

Reflecting on the event 25 years later, Shinn praises his community for their camaraderie in helping each other get through the crisis and organizing better communication across city and county departments.

"It did add up to us being more aware," he said.