On May 18, 1980, Don Swanson placed a frenzied call to his wife to let her know that he was OK. "That's nice," she said, unconcerned. She had no idea her geologist husband had spent the morning in a plane flying by an erupting volcano.
At 8:32 a.m. Pacific Time that day, a magnitude 5.1 earthquake had shaken Mount St. Helens, leading to its eruption.
Its conical top collapsed into a horseshoe crater, sending rivers of mud and rock down its side and an enormous blast of heat and gas to the surrounding forest. Ash clouds wafted for over 930 miles, all the way to central Montana.
The devastating natural disaster killed 57 people and was the most destructive volcanic eruption in US history. It leveled trees, destroyed bridges, and caused more than $1 billion in damages.
Just a few years before the eruption, The New York Times described Mount St. Helens as a "relatively little known volcano 50 miles north of Portland, Oregon." Its eruption forever changed the way volcanologists, geologists, and other scientists perform their jobs.
To commemorate the anniversary of Mount St. Helens' eruption, here's a series of photos that captured the immense devastation it caused 44 years ago.