Saturday, December 10, 2005

Homer's Volcano Stirs

Ok I almost had this post finished when Marty broke his arm, I finally finished it.

Note: all photo's on this post have been retrieved from various websites and are old, none of them were taken by me, and the mountain isn't currently letting off any steam.


Taken from this website.

Mount Augustine, the volcano that's about 75 miles to the west of Homer has recently been stirring. Augustine is an uninhabited island that can be seen on clear days from Homer and neighboring towns. The view from the spit is really breath taking as you can see for yourself...



I guess they've gone from having just a few very small earthquakes each day to around 8 and the ground out there has swelled about an inch from the pressure. The chances that it will blow are rising. Or so the Homer Tribune says. But even with all that said one never knows when or if it'll go. There's a certain website that's tracking it and even has a 24/7 webcam going of the mountain because of the recent activity, they said, "...the current increase (of earthquakes) began in early May 2005. The current rate of earthquake activity observed at Augustine is well below that seen prior to the last eruption in 1986."

One of the things that has always been a worry is a landslide, part of the mountain collapsing, or a few other possibilities causing a tsunami and wiping out the spit and other parts of Homer. For years Homer sounds an alarm that can be heard for MILES and if you live in town, its deafening. I think its sounds once a month for a test tsunami warning. If the real thing ever happens who knows whether people will take it seriously.


Tsunami zone, (Photo taken from the Pratt Museums website)

I don't remember whether it was Mt. Redout or Augustine, but when I was younger one of them blew. It was one of the oddest things I've been through. We no longer lived in a color world, everything looked black and white from all the ash cover. The snow was grey, the streets were grey, the sky was grey, and the falling ash was grey.


This is sorta what it looked like, all grey.


This is a picture of floating ash clouds not long after one of Augustine's eruptions.
I took these last 2 photos off the Pratt Museums site too.

If the volcano erupts I swear I'm gonna drive my tush down there as fast as it will go so I can take as many photo's as I can. Hopefully Marty will be home so he can put panty-hose over the air cleaner in the car. Ash is terrible for your car.

3 comments:

Klondike Kate said...

I remember when Augustine errupted. We had horses and I had to empty the water trough completely a couple times a day. The ash in the water was poisonous...

I used to be able to see Augustine out my bedroom window. I had such a picturesque view...

FishTaxi said...

Great post Bossco!

I remember when Augustine erupted, too. Kids were camping in my yard and woke up covered in ash.

Valdez's tsunami/disaster warning siren goes off every Friday at 5pm.

MrsM said...

Wow Kate, I hadn't even thought about horses in an ash storm. Bet that was a pain.

Thanks fishtaxi. I didn't realize the Ash made it all they way over to Valdez.

I forgot you were still in state Devin. It was neat though, I wish I knew where all the pictures we took were.