Anchorage School District officials are preparing for the potential eruption of the Mount Spurr volcano. The district activated the Emergency Operation Center Friday for the first time since the November 2018 earthquake.
Officials with the Alaska Volcano Observatory say Spurr is likely to erupt in weeks or months.
If a major eruption occurs during the school day, school staff will shut all doors and windows and begin dismissing students. If students can’t be bused home before ash begins falling on Anchorage, ASD Chief Operating Officer Jim Anderson said buses will take elementary students to nearby middle and high schools where supplies are staged. Parents will be asked to pick kids up from those schools.
Anderson said the district has stockpiled air filters for schools and buses, and has more than enough masks on site for every person in every school.
“If it was coming so quickly that you couldn't get them home, we would move them to one of the shelter sites where we have cafeterias,” Anderson said. “Then we'll inform the public. We know that some parents would come and pick up their students.”
A large eruption combined with winds from the west could blow ash toward Anchorage in as little as 30 minutes, but the process for closing vents only takes about 15 minutes. ASD Automation and Fire Security Lead Alex Bryant is tasked with remotely shutting down air handling and ventilation systems at every ASD school.
“From my phone, I could turn off every, close every damper or shut down a fan, boilers, what have you, from Mirror Lake to Girdwood within minutes,” Bryant said.
In the event that Spurr erupts outside of school hours, the district would close schools until it is safe for students to return, but the severity of the eruption and the direction of winds at the time will determine the level of response.
Each school has a volcano response plan outlining shelter-in-place procedures and air quality measures.The district has 40-foot connex container boxes full of emergency supplies staged at each of the 22 ASD middle and high schools stocked to serve up to 1,000 community members for three-to-five days.
