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Sunday, February 1, 2009

Mt Redoubt Eruption Tracking

My beautiful sisters in Christ!

For those of you who are homeschooling OR are just interested, we have a volcano in Alaska that is about to blow. It is Mt. Redoubt. Here are some very interesting links that you can click on to watch the show. They are not sure when it is going to blow, but it is VERY active right now. The glaciers on the mountain are melting and getting larger holes in them.

http://www.avo.alaska.edu/webcam/webcam.php?cam=Redoubt - CI

http://www.avo.alaska.edu/webcam/webcam.php?cam=Redoubt%20-%20Hut

http://twitter.com/alaska_avo

http://www.avo.alaska.edu/webicorders/webicorder.php?volcname=Redoubt

The last shows the seismograph of the area with LOTS of activity. you read it left to right, just like a book. Each vertical line marks one minute (30 minutes across the graph). It is UTC time, not alaska time, so this is current, but it looks like it is from tonight.

(BTW, this is far from me! We are not in its path.)

Thougt it might be neat to track! Volcanoes are one of my fav things. I was in the NW when Mt. St Helens blew. I was a child and I remember it being black as night at 3 pm in the afternoon. The next day ash was everywhere, and everything was so very still. No wind, no birds singing, just still and grey.

We were to stay inside as much as possible because the ash is bad for the lungs. School was cancelled. You had to wear a mask when you went outside. I was young but remember being so worried about my mom and uncle who were outside trying to shovel the ash. I carried a little bottle of the ash on a necklace around my neck for a long time. It was fine and soft as flour.

~smile~ When I was young, I was very concerned about forces of nature (still am passionate about studying them and preparing for them). Mom said that I had asked if there were volcanoes or tornadoes in Washington State before we moved there. She assured me that there wasn't, but we ended up having BOTH! She did not realize that two extremely rare events would occur!

I have been through many natural disasters in my life. Let me take this moment to strongly encourage you to consider what disasters can occur in your area and prepare for them. It is not unreasonable to prepare, AS LONG AS you put your FAITH in the Lord, not your preparations (something that is very easy to miss doing!). If the Lord has provided for you, consider putting some by so that you can be a blessing to your family AND those who could not prepare. You will have the opportunity to show the grace of the Lord if you can help others during a disaster, as opposed to requiring others to help you. :)

Pray about it and see what the Lord says. Do NOT stress or be anxious. It is like house insurance--you do not quake in fear that your house is going to burn down, or get hit by a tornado, but you carry insurance just in case.

Being prepared with food, medicine, warm clothing, battery operated lights (or solar lights for those of you who actually HAVE sun during the year hee hee!), safe heating and alternate cooking supplies will just be some "insurance", not your lifeline. The Lord is our lifeline :-) Preparations and knowledge are the blessings He gives to help us.

God Bless you all! :-)