The media have volcano fever. Channel 2 reporter Yvonne Ramsay built a clay-model volcano for one of last week's broadcasts, and by the time she finished, she looked like a rival at the Science Fair had dumped a 10-pound bag of flour on her. But at least her volcano worked....
Is there anyone in Southcentral Alaska who doesn't have some kind of volcano fever? Anyone who hasn't stocked up on dust masks and air filters? Or who hasn't looked to the sky each morning, searching for a cloud of ash? Or who hasn't check out the Alaska Volcano Observatory's fabulous Web site?
Which brings us to the person who just might be Patient Zero in this epidemic.
Seth Snedigar is the AVO's computer programmer and the man behind www.avo.alaska.edu. That's the Web site that's feeding our fever, and Snedigar has filled it with all sorts of cool stuff, like instructions on how to collect ash so scientists can study it.
Until this month, the most hits the Web site had gotten in a single day was 1.2 million. On Jan. 11, the day a couple of Augustine burps sent a huge plume of ash into the sky, it got 10 million hits. On Jan. 13, the day there were several significant eruptions, there were 20 million....
"We're getting hammered," Nye said. "For some reason, it's taken off."
Here's why: Augustine is Alaska's first interactive volcano. Back when Mount Spurr and Redoubt blew, the Internet was still in its formative years. Now everyone's online, and they can't resist the chance to see a volcano up close.
