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51 “This is bad,” Andy muttered.
52 The pressure under the volcano was building.
53 “Should we evacuate?” the scientists asked each other.
54 The decision was quick. Someone yelled: “EVACUATE THE BASE!”

55 Everyone started moving all at once, grabbing things, yelling. Officers, MPs, and
scientists piled into cars and sped away.

56 From a big field, they watched the dark volcano. They waited.
57 The volcanologists wanted to see their instruments. They wanted to find out
what this volcano was up to so they could extend the evacuation zone if needed, or
learn something that would help at another crisis. But that would mean risking
their own lives.
58 They decided they’d been too hasty evacuating themselves. They drove back to the
observatory on the base, along with the base commanders.
9
59 It was raining. Not just water and ash, but egg-size chunks of pumice . The
scientists hurried into the building and crowded around the seismographs.
60 The earthquakes were so intense that the seismograph needles just banged from
the top to the bottom of the drum, TUNK, TUNK, TUNK, TUNK, making alarming
blocks of solid ink. Pinatubo blasted ash higher and higher. The scientists watched,
aghast, as monitoring stations blinked out one by one on the far side of the volcano—
destroyed. Then a station went down on their side.

9 pumice: light, glassy lava

alarming Something that is alarming makes you worry that something bad may happen.

Threatened by Mount Pinatubo, Clark Air Base was evacuated on June 10.
The light-colored peak in the center is the summit of Pinatubo.

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