Saturday marks 39th anniversary of Mount St. Helens eruption

OLYMPIA, Wash. — Mount St. Helens erupted in Washington state in 1980, killing 57 people and raining ash throughout the state.

>> Unseen photos of Mt. St. Helens eruption discovered in forgotten camera at Goodwill

It was a quiet Sunday morning, at 8:32 a.m., 39 years ago when Mount St. Helens blew its top, sending tons of ash into the sky.

The volcano had been quiet since the 1850s, but in 1980, geologists were observing volcanic action in the Northwest.

“I remember in the mid-70s, Mount Baker was active for a while. They thought Mount Baker might erupt and they shut down the National Forest for awhile in 1975,” said local historian Feliks Banel.

In the spring of 1980, authorities shut down what they called “the red zone,” surrounding Mount St. Helens.

“It was fairly controversial because there were people that had vacation homes there, people trying to do logging operations, some people ignored it. They didn’t enforce it really strictly,” Banel said.

Fifty-seven people perished in one of Washington’s largest natural disasters. Some of them were never recovered.

The mountain in southwest Washington may be the best known volcano in the state, but it's not the only one or the most dangerous.

The U.S. Geological Survey says Mount Rainier could be one of the deadliest volcanoes in the world because of its location near Tacoma and Seattle.

Volcanic gases could rapidly melt snow and ice and generate a huge mudslide called a lahar that could flow through populated areas.

Other volcanoes in Washington are Mount Baker in Whatcom County, Glacier Peak in Snohomish County and Mount Adams in Yakima County.

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