Word: montana
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...eruption's debris northeast from the shattered mountain, thick layers of ash, looking like dirty snow, fell on eastern Washington. Yakima, a town of 50,000 located 85 miles east of the volcano, experienced midnight at noon. The mining and ranching communities of the Idaho panhandle and western Montana turned into ghostly towns in which nobody could move about the dust-choked streets without surgical masks or some substitute: handkerchiefs, bandanas, even coffee filters strapped over nose and mouth with rubber bands. Schools, factories and most stores and offices closed. Highways were closed and airports were shut down because...
Within four days the worst was over -maybe. The dust had settled in the heavy-fallout area, roughly from the ruptured peak to as far east as Montana. Fine ash particles, mostly glasslike silica, had spread in a gigantic, banana-shaped arc in the stratosphere across the nation and will slowly dissipate into invisible clouds after blowing round the world several times. Outside the Northwestern U.S., people will probably notice nothing more than some spectacularly colorful dawns and sunsets over the next several months...
Still, the overall damage to wheat in Washington, Idaho and Montana, and to Washington's abundant cherries and apples, is likely to be minor. Alfred Halvorson, a soil expert at Washington State University, believes farmers will lose no more crops than they would to a "very heavy dust storm." Some scientists feared at first that the ash might produce a devastating acid rain, but tests showed that the dust is about as acid as orange juice. The ash contains no more sulfur than ordinary rainwater does...
...eruption, outside the immediate area of Mount St. Helens, will be the monumental nuisance of the cleanup. Volcanic ash fell in amounts estimated at eight tons per acre in the Moscow-Pullman area of Idaho, 300 miles from Mount St. Helens, and 350 Ibs. per acre in southwestern Montana, roughly 400 miles away. The fine, gritty ash drifted into everything: aircraft engines, sewage and water treatment plants, tractor gears, washing machines. One official at Washington State University warned homemakers to use only detergents when washing clothes because soap might mix with ash in the water, forming a sludge that would...
Throughout Washington, Idaho and Montana, officials cautioned motorists to stay off the roads except for emergencies because the passage of an auto stirs up clouds of dust that blind other drivers. Motorists also were advised to clean air and oil filters every 20 or 25 miles. Some drivers tied pantyhose over their cars' air filters to help keep out the dust. Nonetheless, insurance companies will soon be deluged with claims from the owners of countless autos whose windshields and finishes were pitted...