The Capital City's Newspaper Online

The Capital City's Newspaper Online: "'It's gonna get me, too'

David Johnston, the young U.S. Geological Survey scientist, perished after blurting those excited, but not fearful, words into a radio from a vantage point five miles to the north: ''Vancouver! Vancouver! This is it!''

Eight miles northwest of the mountain, ham radio operator Jerry Martin watched the blast engulf Johnston's camp and the car of Vancouver Columbian photographer Reid Blackburn.

''It's gonna get me, too,'' Martin calmly uttered into his radio.

That was the last anyone heard of Martin, who, like Johnston, never was found.

The blast destroyed everything within about five miles north and west of the mountain, and it didn't vent its fury until it had laid waste forests up to 17 miles away. It left a narrow band of standing, but heat-killed trees ringing a blast zone of 230 square miles."