Word: ashed
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1980-1989
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...hardest-hit towns outside the immediate vicinity of the volcano was Ritzville, Wash, (pop. 2,000). A current of warm, dust-laden air from the west collided with cold air from the east and dumped 5 in. of ash on the town. Reported TIME Correspondent James Willwerth: "If Spokane looked like an ashtray, Ritzville looked as though it had been hit by an avalanche. The town was caked in dust and mud. Streets had 2-ft. drifts. On South Adams Street, Mrs. Erma Miller's once meticulously landscaped ranch-style house looked as if it were in a desert...
...Adams County Auditor Kim Yerxa estimated that cleaning up Ritzville and the rest of the county will cost $2 million; the annual budget is only twice that sum. To clear Ritzville's streets, Sheriff Snowden directed a fire truck to spray the ash so that a road grader could push it into 3-ft.-high dikes. They, in turn, were shoveled up by road crews. But Snowden predicted that it will be a year before the town is free of ash...
...months ahead, residents of Ritzville and a large slice of the Northwest will have to live with the ash, a visible reminder of the titanic forces of nature that shape the earth. To volcano experts Mount St. Helens may be a baby and its eruption second-rate. But to the people in its path it was a catastrophe...
...children. Most were convinced that this must be the end of the world." So wrote Pliny the Younger of the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in A.D. 79, the most famous volcanic explosion in history. The blast buried the Roman towns of Herculaneum and Pompeii under mud and hot ash and killed at least 2,000. In more modern times there have been several catastrophic eruptions of volcanoes. Among them...
...Mount Tambora on Indonesia's Sumbawa Island exploded, ejecting 25 cu. mi. of volcanic material, the greatest amount since ancient times. Whirlwinds and tidal waves killed 12,000, while dust and ash plunged the island into darkness for three days...