Re: hey old guys! what was Mnt. Saint Helons like?
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Can any of you posters who were around and rememeber Mnt. Saint Helons please post some thoughts on what that disaster was like and compare it to this current one?
Was there the same wide spread chaos? Did the officials seem lost? Or are things mush easier whenever those who stay behind just die?
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Can't really relate to Mt St Helens, but I lived in So Cal back in the 90's and remember the Northridge Quake quite well. I owned a condo and had to move out of it for 6 months due to damage.
I don't think you can really compare the two. Although much of the infrastucture was damaged or destroyed people were still in a position to take care of themselves. For instance, immeadiately after the quake our home wasn't very habitable so we just pitched a tent outside. Next day we found out which roads were good and my wife and kids left town for my inlaws(I stayed behind to guard our [censored] from looters). I ate the perishable food first, cooking it on my gas BBQ(I became very adept cooking frozen pizza on the BBQ). Water was restored in a couple of days but you couldn't drink it. However it meant you didn't have to [censored] into a garbage bag and that made a huge difference. We had an earthquake kit so I had enough drinking water to last quite a while. Relatively quickly bottled drinking water was trucked in and you could go to stations and pick up as much as you needed. It was still pretty easy to meet the basic needs of life. Because of that people could cooperate and help each other with cleaning up and providing for each others security.
NO is quite different. These people are not in a position to be able to take care of themselves. They can't pitch a tent outside their homes, nor are the able to begin the clean up process. If they had food stored away its probably destroyed. They probably don't have trash bags to crap in. Its difficult to move around even on foot. All the criminals who were in jail were let out so the there is a much greater security threat. I feel sorry for them.
Stu
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