I see your tornados and floods and I raise you earthquakes and erupting volcanos...

(Picture courtesy of Alaska Volcano Observatory. Click to see a larger view)

From the Anchorage Daily News:

The Okmok Caldera erupted at 11:43 a.m., just hours after seismologists at the Alaska Volcano Center began detecting a series of small tremors.

The explosion flung an ash cloud at least 50,000 feet high, said geophysicist Steve McNutt.

Okmok is 60 miles west of the busy fishing port of Dutch Harbor on Unalaska Island. Ash was reported falling in the region, McNutt said.

Ten people, including three children, were at Fort Glenn, a private cattle ranch six miles south of the volcano on Umnak Island, located in the western Aleutians. They were later picked up by a vessel responding to a Coast Guard request for emergency assistance.

(Satellite picture of ash cloud courtesy of Alaska Volcano Observatory.
Click to see a larger view)

As someone who has lived up here through 3 major ash falls, it's bad for everything/everyone. It sucks for normal people, it REALLY sucks for folks with heart or lung conditions and it's fatal for any car who doesn't have an owner astute enough to 1) not drive it while the ash is falling 2) continuously change the air/oil filters when there's ash on the ground. It can also be bad for any delicate instruments that suck air in to keep cool or running (i.e. anything electronic).

However, it's really, REALLY bad for any airplanes that might fly through it. We had a Korean jet whose pilot didn't speak English very well (contrary to the requirement to speak and understand English in order to fly over U.S. Airspace). He flew directly through an ash cloud. His fourth and final engine coughed and died as he had just finished his taxi on the Anchorage Airport runway during his emergency landing.

Talk about insanely lucky...

I'm as obsessive about volcanos and earthquakes as I am about tornados. I'll be posting more as I know, but you don't have to wait for me. Keep track on AVO's Okmok Volcano Page.