I remember watching the eruption that Sunday morning from Battle Ground and being amazed that with the massive gray plume rising from the volcano. It was strangely silent.
We had been watching smaller eruptions for months, but were still unprepared for the event and the weeks of raining mud that followed. During all of that time, I do not remember being worried, though, but later thought that if the eruption had come our direction things would have been much different.
My daughter was 3 years old, and I saved all the local newspapers articles for her so she could look back later and see all that happened. My husband and I have hiked up to the top of the volcano many times since then, and it is still amazing.
