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We'll start at St. Vincent and the Grenadines, a nation of islands between the Caribbean Sea and the North Atlantic Ocean. St. Vincent itself is the largest island here and its highest point at just over 4,000 feet is the La Soufriere volcano. It's erupting.
A lot of St. Vincent's population lives more than 10 miles south of the volcano in the capital of Kingstown but there are thousands who live near the mountain. And one thing that's a threat to them are pyroclastic flows, when a mix of lava blocks, ash and volcanic gas rush down the slopes of a volcano.
The U.S. government says these flows can destroy almost everything in their path. In addition to that, the nation's Emergency Management Organization says a massive power outage occurred on Sunday and a lot of homes had lost running water as well. So the disaster caused by La Soufriere could interrupt life there for months according to St. Vincent's prime minister.
The air is filled with ash. So much so that people on the island say it's hard to see the volcano but they can smell it. Sulfur has been carried through the air as far south as the capital. Officials are telling people with respiratory problems to be on guard against that and they say La Soufriere could continue exploding for days or possibly weeks before it quiets back down again.
