In the Path of Destruction: Eyewitness Chronicles of Mount St. Helens

A napping volcano blinked awake in March 1980. Two months later, when that mountain roared, Jim Scymanky was about twelve miles northwest, logging a north slope above Hoffstadt Creek. "Rocks zinged through the woods, bouncing off trees, then the tops of trees snapped off... Suddenly I could see nothing...it got hot right away, then scorching hot and impossible to breathe. The air had no oxygen, like being trapped underwater...I was being cremated, the pain unbearable."

Steve Malone, at the U...