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    Eruption: The Untold Story of Mount St. Helens
    Eruption: The Untold Story of Mount St. Helens
    Eruption: The Untold Story of Mount St. Helens
    Audiobook8 hours

    Eruption: The Untold Story of Mount St. Helens

    Written by Steve Olson

    Narrated by Jonathan Yen

    4/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    Survival narrative meets scientific, natural, and social history in the riveting story of a volcanic disaster. For months in early 1980, scientists, journalists, and ordinary people listened anxiously to rumblings in the longquiescent volcano Mount St. Helens. Still, when a massive explosion took the top off the mountain, no one was prepared. Fifty-seven people died, including newlywed logger John Killian (for years afterward, his father searched for him in the ash), scientist Dave Johnston, and celebrated local curmudgeon Harry Truman. The lives of many others were forever changed. Steve Olson interweaves history, science, and vivid personal stories of the volcano's victims and survivors to portray the disaster as a multifaceted turning point. Powerful economic, political, and historical forces influenced who died when the volcano erupted, and their deaths marked the end of an era in the Pacific Northwest. The eruption of Mount St. Helens transformed volcanic science, the study of environmental resilience, and our perceptions of how to survive on an increasingly dangerous planet.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHighbridge Company
    Release dateMar 7, 2016
    ISBN9781681680194
    Eruption: The Untold Story of Mount St. Helens
    Author

    Steve Olson

    Steve Olson, a science major who studied writing with John Hersey and Alice Walker, graduated from Yale University in 1978. He has written extensively on biological sciences, often working at the National Academy of the Sciences and the Institute of Genomic Research in Washington D.C. He has written for Atlantic, Science and many other magazines, and his books include Biotechnology: An Industry Comes of Age and Shaping the Future: Biological Research and Human Values.

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    Reviews for Eruption

    4/5

    88 ratings11 reviews

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    • 5/5
      From beginning to end I found this book to be a surprisingly fascinating read. The complex narrative of the devastating disaster when the top of Mt. St. Helens blew off in May of 1980 begins by examining the environmental and political factors contributing to the scope of the disaster. The science of volcanoes world wide is clearly explained. The stories of the people involved in the event made what would have otherwise been a dry tale a gripping page turner. The description of the eruption from several different perspective and the aftermath was vivid. All in all a lot here to learn.
    • 5/5
      I chose this book because it was going to tell the stories of the people who perished in the volcano. It was much more than that. Mr. Olson went back over a 100+ years to provide history and context to the environmental, political and commercial aspects as well. I found it interesting and educational. But the part I loved was the story of the lives of the people who lived there for several generations. They loved the beauty and enjoyed the area but almost all worked for a major logging company that was destroying it. It's a sad story but one worth reading.
    • 4/5
      Olson's account of the 1980 eruption won't satisfy every reader. He's a little light on the geology for some; a little too interested in the history of Weyerhauser, the logging company that owned much of the land around Mt. St. Helens, for others; and perhaps too concerned with relating the background and hypothetical thinking of the victims. All of which is to say that this is a balanced book that doesn't simply relay the eruption's timeline, but also the politics and economics that affected the responses, the debate about a largely unobserved phenomenon--a sideways volcanic eruption, the lives it ended and the lives it affected, not to mention the aftermath in terms of science and conservation. An excellent book.
    • 3/5
      I picked this up on the recommendation of a someone in our book club. It was a really interesting story (I knew pretty much nothing about the actual event other than being aware it happened), and the audiobook reader did a solid job. I was less interested in the historical stuff about loggers, etc., but ymmv.
    • 3/5
      A fairly good description of the events surrounding the eruption of Mt. St. Helens.
    • 4/5
      Eruption, was better than I thought it would be. The author did a great job, adding facts and background stories of the people described in the book, either because they owned the land or died during the eruption. Unfortunately the book is weakest when it discusses the time after the eruption, and what was and wasn't learned by it.Also, Sadly, like all liberal scientists,the author felt the need to mention climate change even though it has zero bearing on volcanos.
    • 4/5
      I've always found Mount St. Helens more than a bit fascinating, although I've only taken the time to read a few articles and watch a few television programs about it. Overall, the gist I got was: it was a relatively unexpected eruption (as in the geologists knew SOMETHING was up with the volcano, but the eruption itself caught them off guard), the people who died because of the eruption had been warned away but either insisted upon staying or snuck past the road block (except for Dave Johnson, who was a geologist observing the volcano), and...that's about it. And this book states that most of that is completely and utterly wrong.The type and time of eruption, perhaps, were a bit of a surprise, but the geologists, volcanologists, and other scientists studying the volcano clearly thought that there was a high chance that it would erupt soon - they just couldn't pinpoint an exact date or time. But there were clear signs that an eruption was looming on the future: numerous earthquakes in the vicinity, the "bulge" growing on the northern side of the volcano, and the jets of steam being emitted from Mount St. Helens. The problem was, although they thought that there was a chance that the volcano might erupt from its side (which it did - from the "bulge" area), the scientists didn't think that was the MOST likely scenario. They obviously thought it was pretty unlikely to happen, actually, since their observation points (including Coldwater II, where Dave Johnson was killed) were only about four miles away from that bulge. But an eruption? The scientists knew that it was quite likely to happen - but because of politics, big business, and basically never having seen this happen in their lifetimes, a bunch of protections that could have been implemented (and should have been implemented) never happened. Speaking of politics and big business, the governor of the state of Washington at the time was obviously more concerned about logging operations continuing near the base and along the flanks of Mt. St. Helens, rather than the safety of the citizens. Large tracts of logging land - which were open, for the most part, to campers, hikers, fishermen, etc during the weekends - were never marked in the danger zone at all (presumably to keep loggers working during the week). And many of those people who were killed in the blast were just out camping, or hiking, or fishing, and didn't know that they were in danger at all. Most of them were following the posted "red" and "blue" zones and were avoiding those areas. Sure, there were a few like the infamous Harry Truman, who refused to leave his lodge on Spirit Lake and was eventually buried beneath the eruption and resulting landslide - but most were either researching the volcano (Dave Johnson), working there (the photographer Reid Blackburn, some ham radio operators who had stationed themselves along the northern ridges to warn others if the volcano erupted, the foreman who went up with his wife to check the equipment that day), or just enjoying the scenery or nature in general (some who died didn't even have a view of Mt. St. Helens). The author takes a meandering view of the disaster, and spends a great deal on the history of logging in the area, which I found to be a bit tedious. However, the author states in the prologue that his main "goal" of the book was to find out why people were in the region of Mt. St. Helens on that day, and so to put the loggers in the region of that volcano, he felt the need to explain how the logging operations developed in the first place. The number of causalities, by the way, would have been MUCH higher had Mt. St. Helens erupted on a weekday, with hundreds of loggers in those woods, many of them stationed very closely to the volcano. It would have been higher, too, if it hadn't erupted on a Sunday morning - half a day earlier or later, and many others probably would have been up in the region hiking, exploring, fishing, or just watching the volcano.It's an interesting book, especially since the author explores the creation of the national monument and the driving forces both behind and against the creation of that monument. Some of the areas near Mt. St. Helens are still closed to the public nearly forty years after the eruption, being used for research (both the destruction and how quickly nature can "bounce back" from such a disaster). I've always had Mt. St. Helens on my bucket list, but after reading this book, it has moved several slots higher.
    • 4/5
      Absorbing account of the eruption of Mount St. Helens which took place in May of 1980. The history of logging in the U.S.; the personalities and companies involved; the viewpoints of the scientists, conservationists, officials, Forest Service, local, state and federal governments, the tourists, and the people who lived and worked in the area are all covered leading up to the blast and afterwards. Good book.
    • 2/5
      Eruption is a recounting of the events and decisions made by geologist, politicians, companies, and the public in the days before the eruption. The deaths on St. Helens were tragic and preventing them was a complicated mess of stake holders and differing values. The scientist wanted more cautious approach. Logging companies wanted to keep working and turning profits. Politicians wanted to avoid making unpopular decisions. The public wanted to exercise their freedom and enjoy the good weather and the mountains. The sheriff wanted to keep people safe. And the environmental movement was looking for an opportunity into halting the logging companies’ destruction of old growth forest. All pulling in different directions, compromises had to be made in light of an unpredictable mountain.The stories of those that perished are tragic. The passing of the buck after the event of the politicians was disgraceful. Nobody wanted to cry fire if the mountain wasn’t going to blow. Geologist were guilty of not communicating with decision makers with the right urgency. In the author’s opinion they should have also known that Helens was going to blow up sideways and not follow the more familiar pattern for these type of volcanoes. His take on the geology matters is pretty elementary and is more conspiracy than was necessary.Main lesson here is that people are bad at risk assessment. Especially if the incentive to take risks is weighed against a potential disaster with no definitive timeline.
    • 4/5
      In ERUPTION, Olson picks apart the various elements responsible for the loss of life in the Mt. St. Helens explosion of May 1980. This disaster has factors in common with many others, both natural and man-made—greed, stupidity and ignorance. Despite these failings and the sheer magnitude of the eruption, surprisingly few lives were lost—only fifty-seven. Corporate greed on the part of the Weyerhaeuser Company was instrumental because the company refused to curtail logging operations on and adjacent to a mountain that clearly was showing signs of blowing up. Governmental incompetence combined to delineate a much too small exclusion zone, primarily so that it did not encroach on Weyerhaeuser land. This was compounded by an inability to even enforce this woefully inadequate zone by permitting exceptions—the most egregious being to allow the octogenarian, Harry Truman to remain at Spirit Lake—abetted by a network of open logging roads providing easy access by just about anyone with a vehicle. Limitations in our understanding of volcanology at the time notwithstanding, the failure to sense the danger of a lateral blast in the face of a huge and rapidly growing bulge on the side of the mountain seems to lack common sense. In the face of this, it seems remarkable that Governor Ray and President Carter could blame the victims for willingly placing themselves in danger.The most compelling part of Olson’s book is his description of the eruption itself from the accounts of people flying over the crater, climbing neighboring Mt. Adams, or on the ground in the blast zone. Although descriptions of those who did not survive were, of necessity, speculative; those of the survivors were gripping enough to convey what it was like to be there on that day. As a person who visited the blast zone just a few years after the eruption, I can never forget what I saw and felt. The mood was one of danger that surprisingly still existed at that time. Driving a one lane road, intermittently adorned by horns mounted on poles with signs warning to leave immediately if horns sounded, I was struck by the image of miles of giant trees on the ground all aligned as if a giant comb was used on them; by a thick layer of ash everywhere; by a car with its tires and paint burned away; and of course the formerly classical mountain peak disfigured almost beyond recognition. The story seems to have a happy ending however—at least until St. Helens or one of its neighbors erupts once again—because environmentalists have managed to preserve the site for research and education.
    • 4/5
      It seems the more things change, the more they stay the same. As soon as the authorities announced that the volcano is in danger of eruption people flocked to it, all that was missing was people taking selfies with the mountain in the background. There is some contradictory statements, saying residents, tourists, and loggers would bypass roadblocks by going up logging roads, and then later saying the people that were killed by the eruption were not at fault. There is a good distribution of stories of the people affected, although the part about the history of Weyerhaeuser probably could have been shorter.Free review copy.