Jimmy Carter's death is occasion to forgive him for myth about volcano victims

The former president did not know about the state's incompetent drawing of restricted zones when he visited the destruction of Mount St. Helens in 1980

President Jimmy Carter came to Cowlitz County at its time of greatest need, but he unwittingly contributed to a disparaging myth that persists 45 years later.

The former president, who died last week at his home in Plains, Georgia, flew over the Southwest Washington forests and rivers that Mount St. Helens had blasted four days earlier, on May 18, 1980. He also visited a handful of evacuees at Cascade Middle School in Longview.

The destruction almost left the 39th president speechless. The expanse of splintered and uprooted trees, the littered wreckage of logging camps, the skeletal remains of bridges, the hundreds of homes encased in mud was a spectacle he called “the worst thing I have ever seen.”

He said the damage was “literally indescribable” and “much worse” than a moonscape. Before he left the region that same Thursday, the president pledged (and later approved) federal disaster aid and predicted that the volcano would some day become a major tourist attraction. But he also besmirched the reputations of the 57 people the volcano killed.

Like many Americans, I admire Carter for his humility, humanity and his dedication to peace, especially for his efforts after his presidency. But I’m still irked that so many people still blame the Mount St. Helens victims for their own demise, largely because the president echoed Washington Gov. Dixy Lee Ray, who said the victims had violated restricted zones around the mountain.

Only three of the dead are known to have been in the zones, and all three had permission to be there. Over the years I learned about many of those unfortunate people. They were not thrill-seekers and certainly should not have been called lawbreakers. The governor was covering up the incompetence of her own Department of Emergency Management and her own clear reluctance to put Weyerhaeuser Co. timberlands in restricted zones.

Hundreds of loggers were working within a few miles of the bulging north flank of the mountain the previous week. Many would have died had that slope slid away the following Monday morning and unleashed the fury that had seethed inside and had shaken the peak for months.

Even before the mountain started perking in March 1980, scientists had dubbed Mount St. Helens an “especially dangerous volcano.” They had documented that lateral blasts, pyroclastic flows of hot gas and rock, mudflows, ash and rock projectiles and other lethal hazards could affect life and property over a broad area around the volcano. There were ample precedents from similar volcanoes all over the world for what occurred at Mount St. Helens that fateful Sunday.

Then there was the volcano’s ominous behavior that spring. Do you know that the late Stephen Harris, the notable author of Fire & Ice: The Cascade Volcanoes (1980) wrote a magazine piece that April (it didn’t end up appearing until June) suggesting the danger zones should extend 10 to 15 miles around the peak? And that was even before he became aware that the north flank was bulging five feet a day — giving rise to fears and predictions in early May that an explosive lateral eruption could be on the way.

“The volcano was dangerous, no matter what form of activity it took,” Harris testified during a 1985 deposition taken for a famous wrongful death suit brought by the families of some of the volcano victims against the state and Weyerhaeuser.

So why did the state open the “high lakes” area several miles northwest of the volcano to fishing that fateful weekend? Why did it leave all Weyerhaeuser timberlands north and west of the volcano open to the public? (By contrast, the U.S. Forest Service established large restricted zones on its lands northeast, east and south of the volcano.) Why did the governor not sign an order presented to her the week before May 18 that would have dramatically expanded the restricted zones? (She found time that Saturday to meet with supporters about her re-election campaign.)

Gov. Ray, who died in 1994, acknowledged in court proceedings that she agreed to allow Weyerhaeuser to bear responsibility for its workers’ safety and develop volcano response and evacuation plans for its lands. And in reviewing that testimony again recently, I was again reminded of how informal and slow-footed the state’s response to the growing crisis was.

Our former president, without a doubt, was unfamiliar with the history of what had occurred up to that point and was relying on the governor for information when he visited the volcano that May 22.

The run-up to the big blast had been a time of chaos, in which science got called into question and elements of the public chafed at modest access restrictions. Too much media attention focused on Harry Truman, the 83-year old who became a folk hero for defying the volcano and who perished by refusing to leave his lodge at Spirit Lake. In contrast, no press attention got paid to the gross inadequacy of the state’s restricted zones — until it was too late.

A rapidly developing geological crisis got turned into something of a carnival and public relations free for all. In some ways the disordered and untidy public discussion foreshadowed the kind of conflict and political wrangling that COVID caused 40 years later. It was an early case of science conflicting with human nature.

Good science is, of course, cautious and deliberate. But federal scientists accustomed to sober and glacially slow processes were not equipped to handle the public messaging task that their role demanded at Mount St. Helens.

In fairness, government volcanologists did publicly describe a range of potential hazards that Mount St. Helens threatened that spring, but their messaging was often diffuse, too cautious and far from potent enough to cut through the cacophony that prevailed at the time.

Still, fault for at least some of the deaths falls on the state. The scope of the May 18 eruption was unforseen. The pace of events and escalating danger was, perhaps, difficult to respond to in a timely way. The event was so large that some deaths likely were unavoidable.

But hindsight is no excuse. When a square mile of a volcano’s flank gets jacked up five feet a day, common sense tells you to keep your distance. You don’t allow people to drive or work within its shadow.

And you certainly don’t blame citizens for your own failure to respond appropriately whether you have a good excuse or not.

Dixy Lee Ray had to know the state had screwed up, but she shifted the blame to the innocent dead to hide her administration’s incompetence. In the process, she made the former president an unwitting accomplice to her accusation. President Carter’s death is a good occasion to make sure this albatross falls from his reputation.