Word: sand
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...high school, signed on as lead singer, the Dolls looked like harbingers of a rock apocalypse. Glitter, outrageous costumes, strong intimations of dressing-room decadence made them notorious. Their mode may have been outré, but their music was just good old rock 'n' roll sand blasted back to life. The Dolls laid down searing, pop-inflected rock, proudly rooted in rhythm and blues, that could pound your ears into flapjacks. Sardonic anthems like Personality Crisis and Vietnamese Baby did not sit easy on a pop establishment that was still recovering from flower power and cuddling...
...incongruous sight. Two miles offshore from the hotel-lined beachfront, two giant dredges toil away round the clock, scooping up tons of sand from the ocean bottom. Heavy, 27-in. pipes carry the grayish slurry to the beach. There it is deposited in large, neat mounds, until the fresh sand is spread out by large earth-moving machines. Under way for two years, the controversial $64 million project by the Army Corps of Engineers is aimed at nothing less than saving one of the nation's vacation landmarks: that fabled stretch of the Florida Gold Coast known as Miami...
Perhaps the biggest factor in the resort's decline is man's intervention with nature. One of the many barrier islands off the U.S.'s Atlantic and Gulf coasts, Miami Beach is vulnerable to waves, winds and the natural ebb and flow of its fragile sands. During the first great Florida land boom in the early 1920s and the second boom of the 1950s, the beach's problems were compounded by unrestrained growth. Developers put up mansions, hotels and condominiums almost at the water's edge, atop the dunes that protect the island from...
...groins were also ultimately destructive. Though each protected its own stretch of beach, the barricade hastened erosion on the adjacent section, which was no longer replenished by the wash of fresh sand. The only solution seemed to be to build more groins, but they caused more erosion. By the early 1960s, the waves were lapping almost at the foundations of Miami Beach monuments like the Fontainebleau Hilton...
...what is the largest beach restoration ever attempted. When the corps completes the project in 1981, it will have laid down 10.5 miles of new beach (1.2 miles in neighboring communities), with an average width of 250 ft. In addition, the new shoreline will be rimmed by a protective sand dune-a long, flat ridge some 20 ft. wide and 2½ ft. high that will act as a storm barrier-and a park with hundreds of palm trees and paths for strollers and cyclists...