It is estimated that about 7,000 large animals such as deer, elk, and bears were killed and thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of small animals died from the volcanic eruption.
The four members of the Seibold family -- mother, father and two children, ages 7 and 9, perished when Mt. Mt. St. Helens erupted with the force of a hydrogen bomb. "The James F. Fitzgerald, Jr., Memorial Scholarship Fund Established in 1980 by family and friends, this endowed scholarship honors the memory of James F. Fitzgerald, Jr., of Canton, Ohio, a 1970 geology graduate who was killed during the eruption of the Mount St. Helens volcano. When Mount St. Helens erupted on May 18, 1980, photographer Robert Landsberg was documenting the changes in the volcano from just a few miles away. Residents stop and try to remember how the Old 99 Steelhead Drive near Longview used to look before the mud and logs started to cover it from … Fifty-seven people were killed. St. Helens had been surrounded by a lush forest of coniferous trees and numerous clear lakes before the blast.