News Release
| Release Number: | 03-067 |
| Dated: | 5/15/2003 |
| Contact: | Matt Rabe, 503-808-4510 |
Portland, Ore.- Bonneville Lock and Dam interpretive ranger staff invite the public to relive the Mount St. Helens eruption through informational displays and movies on Saturday and Sunday, May 17 and 18, at the Bradford Island Visitor Center.
Twenty-three years ago, the eruption of Mount St. Helens changed the face of the Northwest. It turned 150 square miles of prime timber country into gray wasteland, spewed tons of ash in a wide swath eastward, and unleashed avalanches of mud and debris along river channels flowing toward population centers to the west.
Bonneville Lock and Dam park ranger David Weiss remembers that day like it was yesterday. "I was a boy scout and we were climbing Mt. Hood on May 18, reaching the top just after Mount St. Helens began the big eruption," he said. Later that summer his troop was scheduled to camp at Spirit Lake, a plan canceled by the eruption.
Weiss and other park rangers will be on hand this weekend at the Bradford Island Visitors Center. They will lead a slide show presentation about the eruption and the Corps' role in the clean up, at 10 a.m. and noon. Visitors can learn how the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers responded to the eruption, and about some long-term measures, like the Sediment Retention Structure, that were developed to stop future damage from erosion and debris runoff from the Mount St. Helens area.
Visitors will have the opportunity to watch "Message From the Mountain," the story of the eruption of Mount St. Helens, which will run continually in the main theater except when "The Fire Below Us," which reenacts accounts from survivors of the May 18 eruption, is shown at 11 a.m., 1 p.m., and 3 p.m.
"Besides the films and displays we will have an activity table where kids, young and old, can make a Cascades Mountains mobile," Weiss said. "Participants will be able to cutout, color, and string the mountains of the Cascades together."
The Bradford Island Visitor Center is open daily from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., year-round except for Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year's days. Hours of operation are subject to change depending on to changes in security levels.
The Corps operated dam is located 40 miles east of Portland on the Columbia River, at exit 40 on Interstate 84.
For information on this and other events, contact the Bradford Island Visitor Center at Bonneville Lock and Dam at (541) 374-8820 or visit our website at http://www.nwp.usace.army.mil/op/b/.