Katie Kitchpanich, like most of us, feels like she’s dealt with a lot over the past few years. The coronavirus pandemic, mainly, but also the chaos of last year’s election and the new administration of President Donald Trump.
So, when Kitchpanich heard about an impending volcanic eruption near her hometown of Anchorage — and the accompanying recommendations to equip herself with masks and air filters — it was time to vent. In a video she cut for her TikTok audience of 500,000, she had a stern message for Mt. Spurr, the 11,000-foot conical lava dome volcano that’s threatening severe disruption to life in urban Alaska.
“Mt. Spurr, read the f—king room. There is enough going on in Alaska, in the world,” said Kitchpanich, 30. “Take some antacids and put a cork in it, and come back in a decade. Come back in five years. Just not now, dude. Not now.”
Far more than most Americans, Alaskans contend with natural hazards as part of their daily lives.
Urban bear encounters don’t even make headlines. Avalanches and landslides close roads on the regular. Earthquakes? Anything less than a 6.0 on the Richter scale doesn’t rate.
Eruptions aren’t really exceptional, either: The Alaska Volcano Observatory lists 55 volcanoes that were “recently active.”
But many of those are in remote areas, like the Aleutian Islands and Katmai National Park and Preserve. Spurr, 78 miles from Anchorage, is unusual in its potential to foul air quality, disrupt jet service and otherwise snarl the lives of hundreds of thousands of Alaskans.
The volcano is far enough from Anchorage that destructive mudflows and avalanches pose no significant threat to people. The primary problem is ash, which can severely damage planes that fly through it and also poses risks to human health, pets and vehicles and other machinery — if winds carry it over Anchorage.
Scientists say an eruption looks increasingly likely, but on the vague timeline of “the next few weeks or months.” That uncertainty has provoked a wide range of emotions from the Alaskans living in Spurr’s shadow, who have turned to social media and therapists to help them get through it.
“It’s in the back of your mind all the time,” Kitchpanich said in an interview this week. “It’s going to be super annoying to me — but I think it also could be harmful for other people, as well.”
At the same time, Kitchpanich, like other Alaskans, acknowledged at least a twinge of curiosity about the potential for a once-in-a-generation event.
“This will be, like, our first volcano moment,” said Martin Phillips, another Anchorage resident. “I’m kind of excited. If I get the day off work, I’ll be a happy camper.”
An eruption from Spurr, Phillips conceded, would “cause a lot of trouble for folks.”
“But, personally, I think it’s going to be a really cool experience to live through,” Phillips added. “It’s not often that you can say, ‘Yeah, I was there when that volcano erupted and spat ash everywhere.’”
An eruption does not appear imminent, and may not happen at all.
The volcano observatory, earlier this month, detected “significantly elevated” gas emissions from Spurr, and it’s also seen other signs like higher earthquake activity.
Scientists say the most likely outcome is an “explosive eruption” that could last for a few hours and generate ash clouds, but they anticipate more intense warning signs before it happens. Just before Spurr’s explosive eruptions in 1992, a small lake at one of the volcano’s vents changed color and started to boil.
“We expect some other things to happen, and then we could revise our estimate to, maybe, a span of days. But right now we’re kind of waiting,” said David Fee, a scientist at the volcano observatory.
In the meantime, Alaskans are girding themselves for a major inconvenience.
An eruption from Spurr could deposit as much as one-fourth of an inch of ash on Anchorage and other Southcentral Alaska communities, the observatory says. It’s made of fragmented rock, minerals and volcanic glass — meaning that it’s highly corrosive and can cause respiratory problems, irritate eyes, infiltrate cars and trucks and clog their machinery.
In 1992, Spurr forced a 20-hour closure of Anchorage’s international airport, while the military ran out of hangar space and had to fly 28 planes to other locations, the Anchorage Daily News reported at the time. Ash drifted on the Seward Highway and caused “whiteout conditions” along the ocean southeast of town.
Hospitals reported no serious health problems, though one person interviewed by the newspaper complained that the ash “burns my throat.”
Like during the coronavirus pandemic, Anchorage residents have been stocking up on N95 masks, as well as extras like goggles and even pantyhose that can be used to filter ash from car engines.
One added complication is that, unlike the coronavirus, volcanic ash can affect pets, who experts say should be kept indoors during ashfall. Amazon and local stores have been doing brisk sales of PPPE — pet personal protective equipment — and Alaskans have found moments of levity as they’ve fitted their dogs with goggles, jackets, booties and even canine masks.
“They look ridiculous, because they’re slightly tinted. But the tinted were $11.99,” Anchorage resident Noah Star said of the goggles he bought for Morgan, his cattle dog-husky mix.
Another option was a pricier pair of Rex Specs, which some dog owners buy for non-eruption-related outdoor activities. “But I just know my dog’s going to hate it, and I’m not going to put them on” under any other circumstances, Star added.
Other Alaskans have leveraged the Spurr uncertainty into entertainment. Multiple “Mt. Spurr Classics” have popped up in recent days — a volcanic twist on the popular Nenana Ice Classic, a century-old Alaska tradition in which people can bet on the date and time that winter ice breaks up on a river in the state’s Interior.
At a recent Anchorage house party, attendees were asked to submit their guesses of when ash would erupt from Spurr, down to the hour and minute.
Fee, the Alaska Volcano Observatory scientist, is also a professor at University of Alaska Fairbanks’ Geophysical Institute, and he said students have been making their own guesses.
The observatory also has internal polls where experts have predicted the likelihood and date of an eruption, Fee added. But he declined, apologetically, to reveal his own prognostication.
“I guess I would stick with the party line,” he said, chuckling. “All signs still point to, likely, within weeks to months. Sorry.”
The guessing games and other forms of socializing aren’t just frivolous — they can be supports for Alaskans grappling with uncertainty and anxiety around a possible eruption, according to Dr. Anne Zink, a former chief medical officer for the state who helped lead residents through the coronavirus pandemic.
“Connection provides us great resiliency,” she said. “Prepare for the worst and hope for the best. But don’t overdo it in your preparedness and preparation, or doomscroll.”
Zink, like others, said she appreciates the “natural wonders” that come with living in the state. But she’s still not rooting for an eruption, she added, because she’s seen how natural disasters consistently have the harshest effects on society’s most vulnerable people.
“The people who will be most impacted by it will be those who have chronic lung conditions, or might be battling cancer, or don’t have access to transportation. And it will make already challenging aspects of their life that much harder,” she said. “So, for that reason, I’m very much hoping it doesn’t happen.”
Fee, the volcano scientist, also acknowledged Spurr’s disruptive potential, and he diplomatically declined to say whether he and his colleagues hope for an eruption. But he agreed that such an event would be “very scientifically interesting.”
“That’s why we do it, right? That’s why we study volcanoes — it’s exciting,” he said. “And hopefully we can help out.”
Nathaniel Herz welcomes tips at [email protected] or (907) 793-0312. This article was originally published in Northern Journal, a newsletter from Herz, and KYUK. Subscribe to Northern Journal at this link.
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