Word: drastically
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...countdown to the factory's reopening continued, state officials took drastic precautions to prevent a recurrence of the fatal leak. Throughout the detoxification process, which was to be undertaken only during daylight hours, a helicopter was to circle 200 ft. above the plant. At even the slightest sign of a gas escape, the pilot, protected by a special oxygen mask, would release up to 317 gal. of water to degrade the lethal chemical. If more water were needed, two more helicopters would come to the rescue. All around the facility, blinking lights were set up to help guide...
Only a year and a half ago, the usually brimming California treasury had sprung a leak. Reeling from the revenue losses caused by Proposition 13 and brutalized by the recession, California was facing a deficit of $500 million. The state took drastic measures. It cut or froze social programs across the board and shrank its work force by 4,000. Energy spending was cut back sharply. Tax loopholes were plugged. Today, with its revenues buoyed by the recovery, California expects a budget surplus of anywhere from $889 million to $1.26 billion for the fiscal year ending next June...
...circling around and pecking away at a loaf of bread). The Massachusetts Legislative Council for Older Americans is preparing a nationwide call for mass meetings, parades and a march on Washington to resist Medicare cuts. Vows a spokesman for the Veterans of Foreign Wars: "If they want to make drastic cuts in veterans' hospitals, they're in for the fight of their lives...
After more than a year of pleas, threats, deadlines and back-room bargaining with the Massachusetts state legislature, Superior Court Judge Paul Garrity decided enough was enough. Last week the judge took drastic steps to force the legislature to clean up polluted, malodorous Boston Harbor or risk ending a $500 million-a-year building boom in the Boston metropolitan area. Garrity declared a moratorium on almost all new developments that would be connected to the ancient sewer system that serves Boston and 42 other cities and towns. The order covers all building applications dating back to June...
Ever since the coming of the welfare state two generations ago, there has been an increasing repugnance to the idea of the rich enjoying essential services that are denied to the poor. But that same period has seen a drastic change both in the meaning of essential services and in the way people die. At the turn of the century, most people died fairly quickly of infectious diseases, primarily influenza and pneumonia. Now that those diseases can be cured with drugs, the chief killers are slow degenerative diseases, notably heart ailments and cancer. At the turn of the century, most...