Ash Flood Much Larger Than Initally Reported

As the New York Times reports, early Monday morning the TVA officials reported about 1.7 million cubic yards, which is about 343 million gallons, of wet coal ash broke from a holding lake and flooded nearby residents and polluted the Tennessee rivers. Now the TVA is saying the spill was about three times larger than initially reported, actually 5.4 million cubic yards of ash broke from the lake, that is more than 1 billion 90 thousand gallons of wet ash.

Residents were stunned by the new numbers. "That’s scary to know that they can be off by that much,â€ said Angela Spurgeon, whose yard is swamped with ash. "I don’t think it was intentional, but it upsets me to know that a number was given of what the pond could hold, and the number now is more than double of what the pond actually held.â€

You can visit this sight to verify my conversions, 5 400 000 cubic yard = 1 090 659 740.3 gallon [US, liquid].