Having Everything Right

January 1, 2002
The most copiously reported natural event in world history, the 1980 eruption of Mount St. Helens dominated the media for days, reshaped the region, affected the lives of all within reach of its ashfall and was soon forgotten by everyone else. Colasurdo, who grew up below the volcano, offers a sometimes lyrical, somewhat awkward, bittersweet view of the place she loved and the very different place she discovered through research, interviews and treks. Colasurdo recalls childhood idylls; she locates friends and others who became displaced persons after their mountain moved; she interviews a cavalcade of scientists who have studied the region. Some vignettes are finely drawn, as are some crystalline sketches of great enigmas found in the natural world. The book is instructive in reporting the remarkably complex and dynamic events of both the eruption and its aftermath. A freelance reporter and first-time author, Colasurdo writes some passages with the cautious clarity of an everyday journalist. Elsewhere, she offers the passion of a writer enchanted by a wondrous place and the pain of one who saw Eden burn. While some awesome facts are hardly new--that lava reached 1100 degrees F., for instance--they take on new meaning in Colasurdo's panorama. As St. Helens once intrigued distant audiences, so should this account of its eruption, continuing evolution and the surprising lessons therein.