Redoubt in the news

A quick round-up of some points from the news media’s coverage of Redoubt today.

Reuters, under the puzzling headline ‘Alaska’s Redoubt erupts, more may follow’ (more eruptions at Redoubt, not more volcanoes, presumably) reports that the Drift River Oil Terminal was in the process of shutting itself down in response to the eruption. Interior Secretary Salazar is quoted as saying that ‘we believe everything is safe there’. An AFP report (among others) notes that Alaska Airlines is cancelling flights out of Anchorage. The volcano has also disrupted the travel arrangements of Alaskan politicians – the nerve.

The Anchorage Daily News has extensive reports on the eruption, including accounts of the significant ashfall at Skwentna, upwind of the volcano.

Popular Science reports that ‘Federal Aviation Administration officials have not stopped flights into Anchorage, but some airlines have canceled flights into the state’s capitol’. They mean ‘capital’, not ‘capitol’, and anyway Anchorage is not the state capital of Alaska.

‘Ash clouds as Alaskan volcano erupts’, says the link on the BBC News website, but the link goes to a video of the 15 March explosive event (which happened in daylight, not during the hours of darkness as was the case with the current eruption). This video is not identified as dating from 15 March, thus giving the casual browser the impression that the BBC is showing them a video of today’s eruption. The same video, still not correctly dated, is used to illustrate the BBC’s report of the current eruption. This really is very sloppy news presentation.

UPDATE: 24 March 2009 – the BBC are still using the 15 March video clip without identifying it. In this new report today it is coupled directly to shots of ashfall from the current eruption, making it even more potentially misleading.

For all our Redoubt coverage: Redoubt « The Volcanism Blog.

News
Alaska’s Redoubt erupts, more may follow – Reuters, 23 March 2009
Redoubt erupts – National Geographic, 23 March 2009
Alaska volcano erupts: ash, quakes – and more to come – National Geographic, 23 March 2009
Mount Redoubt volcano in Alaska erupts explosively – ScienceDaily, 23 March 2009
Alaska volcano erupts five times – AFP, 23 March 2009
Alaska volcano erupts five times – BBC News, 23 March 2009
Skwentna reports ‘complete ash-out’ – Anchorage Daily News, 23 March 2009

Information
Global Volcanism Program: Redoubt – summary information for Redoubt (1103-03-)
Alaska Volcano Observatory – Redoubt – AVO information and updates for Redoubt
Alaska Volcano Observatory – main page for the AVO
Anchorage VAAC advisories – volcanic ash advisories issued by Anchorage VAAC are archived here