VANCOUVER, Wash. -- The U.S. Geological Survey's Volcanic Observatory in Vancouver is best known for Mount St. Helens and the other volcanoes of the Northwest.
But years of developing tools to share volcanic readings is paying off and scientists in Vancouver are helping with the effort to study and report on Kilauea in Hawaii.
“Now we’re at a post reach of over a million for this past week,” said geologist Liz Westby.
The updates you see on Facebook, at USGS Volcanoes, are mainly posted by Westby in Vancouver, not Hawaii.
She spent a month there this spring as the volcanic trouble began to build. She feels a deep connection to the people affected.
“Sometimes I feel like it’s not fair. Because I go home at the end of the day and I pet the dog and kiss my husband and we have dinner. And there are people in the Leilani Estates subdivisions and their homes are being destroyed or they are under evacuation orders,” she said.
Geophyscist Wes Thelen, who is also in Vancouver, was on the Big Island a week before the eruption began. He feels the connection too.
And he's one of several scientists, from California to Alaska, now taking turns getting up in the middle of the night to monitor instruments on Kilauea, so his colleagues in Hawaii can sleep.
“Posting observations to internal logs and relaying anything that might be of use to the geologists from the seismometers, or the GPS or the cameras because they're on the ground. They don’t necessarily have great access to those tools and we can provide that,” he said.
It’s unclear how long Kilauea will erupt this time. But the scientists in Vancouver say they’re ready to help for as long as they are needed.
If you’d like to learn more about volcanoes you are invited to an open house at the Cascades Volcano Observatory in Vancouver. It will be held on Saturday, May 12, from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. It is free and open to the public. The address is 1300 SE Cardinal Court, Vancouver, WA 98683.