Vigilant
Senior Member
- Joined
- Jan 8, 2011
- Messages
- 953
- Location
- Eastern NC
- Occupation
- Attitude Adjuster at the Graybar Hotel
I'm posting this with the permission of akroadrunner, also knows as 'Smoke'. His dad lost everything whe St Helens blew years ago. a whole logging side. Putting bits and pieces together, I can tell you that Smoke and his Dad are salt of the earth. Top notch people. It is with Smoke's permission that I started this thread. He was looking for someone to build a model tower for his dad, who is 85 now. I would like to ask for volunteers to donate, and to build the tower. If we get enough response, perhaps we can build a shovel and truck as well. I'm asking for someone with some talent to build the model, or models, and others who are able and willing to send donations to them to help cover their time. I plan to donate as well, once we get this off the ground, and get a designated builder, or builders, to send donations to. Please, consider getting involved with this. Can you imagine what it did to this old gent when he learned that everything he had was gone? And now, in his golden years, to receive a model, or models, of his equipment to keep for the rest of his life.... to me, it would be priceless.
Please, consider getting involved in this project. Smoke didn't ask me to do this; it was my idea. To the model builders: No one expects you to do this for free. Let's see how many pledges we can get, and have a look at this. Game?
Here is a poor job of a cut-and-paste of two posts from Smoke in the St. Helens thread to give some background:
We lost our equipment and 2 men on that day. Ross & Sons Logging. We were logging on Shultz Cr. just below Hanaford Lake. One ridge behind Coldwater. If the blast had happened while we were working, there would have been 9 widows in our family. I've been to the visitor center twice since the blast. Cried both times. Teared up looking at your pics. I knew half the people lost that day, including my newly wed neighbors, John and Christy Killian. My dad found Christy's body a few months later while out searching for her and John with John's dad.
My Dad, brother, and I hiked into our equipment 2 days after the blast on an overcast day with the mountain not visible and still rumbling. We had to hike many miles through hot ash. We were hoping to find survivors, but that didn't happen.
The folks at the Toutle church had been praying that the mountain would not erupt while we were working. My mom pulled out of her driveway that morning, headed to the church. She had felt the earthquake a few moments before. When she looked to her left for traffic, she saw the eruption. Instead of going to the church, she went to the Toutle fire dept. where she worked, and set off the alarm to evacuate Toutle. Later we all watched on TV at my house in Vader, as the wall of mud a debris came down the valley. The were saying it was hundreds of feet high. I asked my dad how far above the river their house was. He looked at me and said "186 feet". Fortunately the debris spread out before getting to Toutle and their home and my brothers was saved. My dad flew into the blast area the next day with the Nat. Guard. Hard to tell where he was at even though he often flew in the past to look at timber sales. Later on, Ralph Killian, the father of John whom I mentioned earlier, landed in a Weyerhauser chopper in a hay field separating our homes. He had flown over our equipment. My dad asked if he had seen anything of our timber fallers, Tom Gadwa and Wally Bowers. Ralph told us that if they were at the job site, there was no chance for survival. My dad then asked about the equipment. Ralph, who was dealing with his own emotions looking for his son and wife Christy who had been trout fishing at a lake near our outfit, looked at my dad and said, It's all gone Keith, all gone". I'll never forget the look on my dad's face.
Please, consider getting involved in this project. Smoke didn't ask me to do this; it was my idea. To the model builders: No one expects you to do this for free. Let's see how many pledges we can get, and have a look at this. Game?
Here is a poor job of a cut-and-paste of two posts from Smoke in the St. Helens thread to give some background:
We lost our equipment and 2 men on that day. Ross & Sons Logging. We were logging on Shultz Cr. just below Hanaford Lake. One ridge behind Coldwater. If the blast had happened while we were working, there would have been 9 widows in our family. I've been to the visitor center twice since the blast. Cried both times. Teared up looking at your pics. I knew half the people lost that day, including my newly wed neighbors, John and Christy Killian. My dad found Christy's body a few months later while out searching for her and John with John's dad.
My Dad, brother, and I hiked into our equipment 2 days after the blast on an overcast day with the mountain not visible and still rumbling. We had to hike many miles through hot ash. We were hoping to find survivors, but that didn't happen.
The folks at the Toutle church had been praying that the mountain would not erupt while we were working. My mom pulled out of her driveway that morning, headed to the church. She had felt the earthquake a few moments before. When she looked to her left for traffic, she saw the eruption. Instead of going to the church, she went to the Toutle fire dept. where she worked, and set off the alarm to evacuate Toutle. Later we all watched on TV at my house in Vader, as the wall of mud a debris came down the valley. The were saying it was hundreds of feet high. I asked my dad how far above the river their house was. He looked at me and said "186 feet". Fortunately the debris spread out before getting to Toutle and their home and my brothers was saved. My dad flew into the blast area the next day with the Nat. Guard. Hard to tell where he was at even though he often flew in the past to look at timber sales. Later on, Ralph Killian, the father of John whom I mentioned earlier, landed in a Weyerhauser chopper in a hay field separating our homes. He had flown over our equipment. My dad asked if he had seen anything of our timber fallers, Tom Gadwa and Wally Bowers. Ralph told us that if they were at the job site, there was no chance for survival. My dad then asked about the equipment. Ralph, who was dealing with his own emotions looking for his son and wife Christy who had been trout fishing at a lake near our outfit, looked at my dad and said, It's all gone Keith, all gone". I'll never forget the look on my dad's face.
Smoke.