WAITSBURG - Just as some residents in the Touchet Valley were watching the news about Hurricane Irene making landfall on the East Coast on Sunday, they were suddenly taken aback by a local weather event of their own.

After late afternoon clouds gathered over Waitsburg, winds picked up out of nowhere and took huge clouds of dust from the dry fields with them, towering high over the city and surrounding countryside.

The dust storm quickly reduced visibility to only a few hundred yards and whipped off summer leaves, branches and, in some cases, trees in repeated gusts of debris across city str...