MOUNT ST. HELENS, ERUPTION OF, to date the most deadly volcano attack ever to occur on U.S. soil. Fifty-seven victims perished and hundreds more were rendered homeless by a blast which rocked the area around Skamania County, Washington during the morning of May 18, 1980. At fault in the devastation was Mount St. Helens, a particularly volatile member of the Cascade Range with a long history of violent subduction.
News of the calamity touched off a nationwide ecoterrorism panic, which quickly blossomed into full-scale hysteria with the discovery of a USGS report estimating the number of so-called sleeper
volcanoes in the country at 170 or more, and calling the next potentially lethal eruption a matter of when, not if.
President Jimmy Carter was forced to declare publicly that his administration was not soft
on the environment, but he could not reverse the damage the scandal had caused to his re-election prospects. His opponent Ronald Reagan, having campaigned from the start on a strongly anti-environment platform, easily routed the unfortunate Carter in the general election that November.
—Encyclopedia Blipvertica.