1. How did the photographers die while their film survived?

Two of the three photographers who perished in the eruption (Reid Blackburn and Jim Fitzgerald) were found dead due to asphyxia. They were both found in their cars. Blackburn’s footage did not survive the blast, but Fitzgerald’s did. He hid the camera in a bag and shoved it under the seat of the car to save it. 

Robert Landsburg hid his camera in a backpack and shielded it with his own body. His body was found several weeks later on top of the protected backpack.

(See In the Path of Destruction by Richard Waitt and this: https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-republic-searchers-find-body-of-anot/153496385)

2. Did the injured/killed Weyerhauser loggers receive workers compensation?

I wasn’t able to find precise data about workman’s comp payouts related to the eruption, but there’s no reason to think that they would not have received payouts, being injured at the workplace. As long as they were classified as employees, a portion of their income should have paid into the worker’s compensation program at the Washington State Department of Labor & Industry, which should have paid commensurate benefits.

People who temporarily lost their employment due to the eruption became eligible for unemployment benefits, which you can read about on page 31 of this document: https://volcanoes.usgs.gov/vsc/file_mngr/file-78/pub1096.pdf 

Separately, several of the Weyerhaeuser workers sued the logging company for misrepresenting the danger of the volcano, which was eventually settled out of court in 1986. You can read about the lawsuit here: https://www.upi.com/Archives/1986/08/28/Weyerhaeuser-settles-in-volcano-suit/9784525585600 

3. Governor Dixie Lee Ray was erroneously referred to in this episode using male pronouns. Governor Ray was a woman and used she/her pronouns. 

1. A chifferobe is a piece of furniture that both contains a place to hang clothes and drawers to fold and store items. It is basically an armoire and a chest of drawers smushed together.