This email has very
little to do with audio, but I've been getting so many questions about the volcano in Iceland that I thought I'd share what I know.
There's been a lot going on for the last month or so, but it wasn't until this week that news outlets in English have been covering it, so you can find more about it on the NY Times and Huff Post for instance.
But I'm sure you'd rather hear it from your friendly neighborhood audio blogger...
WTF Is Going On?!?!
Here's my informal, unofficial, and highly unsanctioned
report.
I am neither a journalist, nor a particularly enthusiastic fact checker, but I believe what my mom tells me so that's what you get.
Grindavík (population 3,400) has been evacuated due to threat of a volcano erupting
underneath and swallowing it whole.
Grindavík is about a 30-minute drive from my hometown of Hafnarfjörður.
Or it used to be until they closed that road because the thousands of earthquakes got so bad they split that road in half.
It's usually not a good idea to drive on a road that has active magma bubbling underneath.
And yes, my parents and family are safe. Thanks for asking.
There's really no best case scenario here, as it's not a matter of if the
volcano erupts. It's a matter of when.
And where it erupts will dictate the varying degrees of "Oh Fuck!" that we have to respond to.
The Three Shitty Scenarios of Having Volcanic Neighbors
First shitty scenario is that the magma bursts to the surface in the middle of Grindavík, probably in the middle of the golf course, on the Par 4 hole where I got an Eagle for the only time in my life.
So that will essentially displace the
entire population of the town and it will cause a devastating loss of property and lasting negative economic impact.
I'm not a geologist so I don't know the likelihood of that happening, but considering that we've evacuated the entire town and it's illegal to go near it without supervision, I'd say the risks are serious.
The second scenario that will suck is if the volcano takes out the power plant nearby and demolishes the Blue Lagoon.
That means no hot water for the neighboring towns, and it will wipe out one of our most popular tourist attractions. Cold showers and the Wimhof method for the
neighboring Vikings, and no white dirt on your face if you're a tourist.
Awful, but survivable. I believe we have backup power in place and the Blue Lagoon is a tourist trap that's too expensive anyway.
The third potential ending to the
eventual disaster movie starring The Rock is if it erupts explosively in contact with the ocean.