Fire and Iceland

While I was chatting with a friend yesterday, she happened to mention that something was happening in Iceland. At the moment I sort of just glossed over her comment, assuming by “something going on,” that it was something I would not care about, like some sort of human rights scandal or the season finale of Iceland Idol. But then I looked it up today and apparently some big volcano is blowing up the entire place.

This emergency called for quick action. First, I had to figure out where the hell Iceland was. I suck at geography. My friend also pointed this out by reminding me that in my senior year of high school I once listed Denmark as a U.S state. Of course, once I found out that Iceland is some island off the coast of Europe and is too far away for the eruption to affect me, I stopped caring. It’s not that I’m not aware of the destructive power of volcanoes. I mean I spent 18 years of my life living on an island made up of volcanoes, one of which is active. It’s more like I don’t care about what happens to Europeans. Of course my high school friend is probably yelling at me as she is reading this, since she is currently in Europe (which come to think of it might be the reason she knew about this way before me).

Anyway this volcano is wrecking havoc on the Icelandic way of life; whatever that may consist of (getting frostbite?). 500 people were evacuated from the area, which surprised me since I was unaware there were even 500 people who live in Iceland. The volcano has also disrupted local Iceland airline flights (another thing I assumed Iceland did not have). Also, they are worried that the volcano eruption might cause flooding. Yes I know that sentence confused me at first too, sort of like the first time I read the sentence “Taco Bell Drive-Thru Diet.” But apparently the lava is melting the snow and ice around the volcano, which can cause massive flooding. Also, this volcano is apparently causing something called a “dirty thunderstorm.” I have no idea what that is, but judging by these pictures it is going to kill somebody. I’m no expert, but lightning is not supposed to come out of volcanoes except in Michael Bay movies.

Now as I said earlier, my home state of Hawaii was made by volcanoes, and the island I live on actually has an active volcano, Kilauea. But our volcano acts like a Hawaiian volcano as opposed to these peppy European ones, as in it moves very slowly. “Erupting” is probably too strong a word for what Kilauea does. “Ooze” is probably more appropriate. In fact, rather than evacuate people, we charge tourists money and let them go close to it! It’s part of our plan to make lots of money while hopefully at the same time reducing the population of tourists.

I’m just joking; it’s actually not dangerous at all. That stupid Man vs. Wild guy did an episode where he had to “survive” in Kilauea. He was dropped into the “inhospitable environment” of one of the largest tourist destinations in the U.S. I know, it’s scary. I mean, he was forced to survive in a barren expanse of rock where elderly tourists are often seeing walking around with fanny packs. They probably had to edit out the kindergarteners on a field trip that were standing behind him and waving at the camera. But sometimes you only get three bars on your cell phone, so there are some dangers. Plus if he tripped on the rocks he could really get a bad boo-boo that would need a Band-Aid.

The only real negative from the volcano is the occasional vog, which for you mainlanders out there, is a haze made of up volcanic ash. The vog is irritating because on bad days it makes the sky turn a little gray and it can reduce visibility, especially in my hometown of Kona. I mean, a horrible day in Kona is still better than the best day of the year on the mainland but it can still get kind of irritating. When I was a reporter at the West Hawaii Today it seemed like every other day I was assigned a story on the vog. It tells you something about how easy life in Kona is that the biggest concern to citizens was that it was a little cloudy once in awhile. I also once had to do a story trying to convince people that, believe it or not, it is not a smart idea to try and plug a volcano with concrete or blow it up.

Speaking of stupid ideas, all these people who chose to live in Iceland are really going through some hard times. I feel like as a nation we need to do something to make them feel better. Now that I think of it, apparently there is some big event tomorrow afternoon where we will at least be inhaling as much smoke as them…