Letter to the Editor: Lewis County Has Survived Crises Before

Posted

Lewis County and Washington state have been through something very similar to this pandemic before. Forty years ago on May 18, 1980, Mount St. Helens erupted. 

We had vehicles that would not run, businesses that were forced to close, thousands of people and their families involved in every type of businesses were facing financial ruin, people that were vulnerable with lung issues not allowed to even walk out onto their porches, hospitals overwhelmed with asthma cases, and all the personal things we like to do came to a halt. They had to. 

We didn’t argue about it because ash was on everything. It was ash from our mountain that circled the globe and caused planes to be grounded, flights to be canceled and right here in Western Washington young and old alike stayed home, inside and wore masks if they absolutely had to walk outside. We did it then and spent literally years cleaning up after that volcano event. 

I just cannot even think we are not able as a community to do this “social distancing” better now. For goodness sake, we are probably the only folks in the U.S.A that have had to live as we did 40 years ago after that volcano.

 



Judy O’Brien

Chehalis