On a quiet winter morning in january 2006, a giant, sleeping volcano on an unassuming, uninhabited island in Alaska awoke from a 20-year nap. And it woke up with a bang. At about 4:44 A.M., the volcano known as Mount St. Augustine erupted, sending a cloud of steam and ash 45,000 feet (13,716 meters) into the air. Airplane pilots flying in the area quickly reported the eruption, and the Federal Aviation Administration temporarily restricted flights within 5 miles (8 kilometers) of the rumbling mountain. At the same time, the United States Geological Survey classified Augustine as an alert level red volcano, the highest level of concern. Everyone started to pay attention to Augustine. The volcano continued to erupt for many days. Eventually, it sent a steam cloud to the southeast, over a 45-mile-long (75- kilometer-long) area. Amazingly, no one was hurt. To start with, no one lived on Augustine’s remote island located in Alaska’s Cook Inlet; the steam cloud never reached people living in the large, nearby city of Anchorage; nor did it clog the engines of unsuspecting airplanes passing by.