Holy Crap!

I have an online friend thru a gaming bulletin board that lives in Iceland. He's a really nice guy with a family and  he's shared many laughs with us in game. Last night he sent us a shocking message that a volcano has erupted 15 MILES from his house and they've taken several evacuee families into their home.

Fifteen miles?!? From an erupting volcano??? Holy crap!!!

Another message today:
This is a modest volcano and last erupted in 1821. It is however located under a glacier, hence the precautions, - all living in the possible path of the melting water get evacuated. It was odd to have my friends and neighbours showing up with their bedclothes and dogs!
The worse part is however that another dormant one rests close to this one, Mt Katla, and she is overdue. That is a bad bad volcano, erupts powerfully and delivers a river of icebergs and melting water which equals 3x the capacity of the Amazon on a rainy day. That one is about 35 miles from me. In case of her going off, I will also have to evacuate.


Personally, I'd be on the first train, plane or automobile outa Dodge!!! 


Modest shmodest. I was in Seattle when Mt. St. Helens erupted in Oregon and you could see it from there. I actually had to outrun the ash cloud from a subsequent eruption a few weeks later when I was riding my motorcycle home on leave from the Coast Guard. That was kinda hairy. All I heard on the radio was how it was trashing vehicle engines from ingesting the ash. I could see the layer of ash from the previous eruptions already on the ground and the new ash cloud was relentlessly following me. I didn't stop until I reached Montana and spent 3 days holed up in a tourist trap motel there waiting for the all clear.


On the bright side, they did have a very cool bar and lots of friendly natives, if you get my drift...


Here's more info on the Iceland volcano. The english translation is a little rough.