Mt. Fitzherbert

Dan Dzurisin was on the rim of Mount St. Helens last week when the volcano started to rumble.

Though clouds blocked his view of the crater, Dzurisin, a U.S. Geological Survey volcanologist, knew what was going on.

A quarter century ago, Steve Malone felt defeated and Seth Moran was elated.

Malone was, and still is, lead scientist at the University of Washington in charge of monitoring Mount St. Helens' seismic activity for signs of eruption. He had been the first to recognize that the mountain's quakes were evidence of an awakening volcano. But the blast of May 18 still surprised him -- as it did everyone.

About 18 months ago, geologist Cynthia Gardner hurried down a corridor of the Cascades Volcano Observatory in Vancouver, Wash. Management at the U.S. Geological Survey recently had bought a defibrillator and Gardner was late for her training session.

On her way, she saw a small group of junior, temporary contract scientists gathered in a room near the training area. Poking in her head, she gently admonished them, saying that as the only young people on staff, they better attend the training. It likely would be one of them, she said, who would save her or some other staff "geezer" in the event of a cardiac arrest.

They careened down winding mountain roads at breakneck speed ahead of a deadly volcanic surge. They cowered in hunting shacks as lightning-laced ash clouds blackened the midmorning sky.

They prayed to God to save them. They risked their lives to save others.

Twenty five years ago this morning – 8:32 a.m. May 18, 1980 - Mount St. Helens blew her top.

A force 300 times more powerful than the atom bomb at Hiroshima killed 57 people, thousands of animals and devastated thousands of acres of land. The Toutle River turned into a raging combination of ash, mud and logs, and nearby Spirit Lake was nearly filled with ash.

For anyone living in the Northwest, it's a day they will always remember.

SEATTLE - Twenty-five years ago, a KOMO 4 News photographer had a hunch. Dave Crockett headed to Mount St. Helens, pretty sure that "something" was going to happen.

Crockett was there on May 18th, 1980, when the mountain blew it's top and he continued to film as he witnessed what he called "Hell on Earth."

VANCOUVER, Wash. -- Visitors to Mount St. Helens observed a moment of silence at 8:32 Wednesday morning to mark the time 25 years ago when the volcano erupted.

The blast killed 57 people, leveled hundreds of square miles of forest and dumped gritty ash across Washington. It sent mudflows down the Toutle River that clogged the Columbia.