Remembering Mount St. Helens, 40 years later

RITZVILLE - For the 40th anniversary of the eruption of Mount St. Helens on May 18, 1980, The Journal asked readers about their memories of the event.

Individual stories merged like so many streams into one river of memories.

Kirk Danekas was serving as the newly-elected mayor here when the mountain blew.

"It blew all over the world, basically, but it happened to settle in Ritzville. We got the brunt of it," Danekas said. "The hardest part of the ordeal was Ritzville went from a city of roughly 2,000 people to suddenly having another 2,000 people stranded in town.

"They were staying in the sch...