Iceland review - 2013, Qupperneq 51

ICELAND REVIEW 49
who moved to Canada and I haven’t seen since we were kids,”
explains psychologist Einar Gylfi Jónsson, a Heimaey native who
didn’t move back to the island after the eruption but, like most
others who were born there, has remained a Vestmannaeyingur at
heart. “Vestmannaeyjar natives are scattered all over the country
and it usually doesn’t take a long time until they’ve pointed out
where they’re from.” Last year, Einar and some of his friends orga-
nized a special reunion for residents of Urðarvegur and two other
streets in the neighborhood where they grew up, now covered
by lava. A major hit, the storytelling event is back on this year’s
program. “There’s a strong storytelling tradition in Vestmannaeyjar.
We know a lot of stories about one another and we know how to
tell a good story.”
When the Eldfell eruption started on January 23, 2013, Einar
was 22 and studying in Reykjavík. His family, who had moved
from Urðarvegur and to the western part of town—a neighbor-
hood spared by the volcano—was evacuated along with most
other Heimaey residents that fateful night. “My sister Helga had
just started dating her husband Arnór. He was allowed to visit her
in her room in the loft but had to leave at midnight. The night of
the eruption he was still there, reading Brekkukotsannáll [The Fish
Can Sing (1957) by Nobel Prize in Literature laureate Halldór
Laxness], that I had recommended, to impress me and my father.
When my family woke up to the eruption at 1:30 am Arnór came
sheepishly down the stairs because he should have left the house
already. An awkward silence followed. But the only thing my father
said was: ‘Is no one going to invite him to a cup of coffee?’.”
Fighting thE FlAmES
“That very day we had moved into our first apartment and just
painted all the walls,” recollects mother-of-five and business-
woman Svanhildur Gísladóttir. A native of Siglufjörður in North
Iceland, she had moved to Vestmannaeyjar in 1970 after meeting
her husband. They had a one-year-old daughter and Svanhildur
was seven-months pregnant with their second child when the
eruption began. “My sister knocked on the door and woke us up at
1:30 am, saying we all had to leave. ‘Out of the question!’ was my
immediate response. Then I left with just one diaper and a baby bot-
tle. I figured that we would just sit the eruption out at the harbor.”
Because of bad weather the previous day, none of the island’s fish-
ing vessels were out at sea and around 4,000 of its 5,300 inhabitants
were evacuated in only four hours. The U.S. military, which was
based in Iceland at the time, sent helicopters to rescue those hospi-
talized and unable to travel by boat. The operation went smoothly
and the refugees were given shelter on the mainland, with relatives
or in state-owned housing. To help out, the Norwegian Red Cross
and Norwegian-Icelandic Association invited 900 school children to
spend the summer in Norway.
On Heimaey, a fair share of the island’s adult male population,
firefighters, volunteers and U.S. soldiers tried to save the town and
harbor by shoveling ash from roofs and cooling the lava with sea-
water. For that purpose, 19 powerful pumps were provided by U.S.
authorities. Their actions were partly successful—the harbor, the
town’s lifeline, remained open—but 400 houses were destroyed by
lava and ash. The volcano’s deadly fumes posed the greatest risk to
those who stayed and in March they claimed the life of one man,
who had entered the basement of a building in the danger zone. He
was the only person who died in the eruption.
Gradually, the volcano’s fury relinquished and on July 3, 1973,
men who monitored the crater in shifts announced that the erup-
tion was over.
in thE ShAdow oF thE VolcAno
Funny stories and heroic tales have often been told about the erup-
tion but in the four decades that have passed since it occurred,
people have avoided speaking of their emotions and the difficulties
they have faced. Local historian Jóhanna Ýr Jónsdóttir, who was born
after the eruption, asked herself what inhabitants had really felt and
made that the topic of her documentary Útlendingur heima – uppgjör
við eldgos (‘Foreigner at Home – Closure on the Eruption’), which
Svavar Steingrímsson and his son óskar Svavarsson,
who were among the first to declare the eruption to
be over on July 3, 1973, lead walkers to the crater of
eldfell with Svavar recounting the course of events
he witnessed while being stationed on Heimaey as
part of bunuliðið (‘the hose crew’).