Dust Bowl Disasters

Date: [unknown] [unknown]
Location: Great Plains, America

Dust Bowl

Three factors caused the Dust Bowl: 1) environmental 2) human and 3) education

Hansford county.

A massive drought hit the United States in the 1930's.

We have no control over a drought or other weather event. Since the Dust Bowl, we have learned how to control what we as humans can control.

Causative agents 1) Farmers plowed the virgin topsoil of the Great Plains displacing the deep rooted natural grasses which normally held the soil in place. Thus the high winds blew the topsoil away, environmental. The original native grasses of the Plains had been deep-rooted and kept the high winds from blowing away soil. The grasses had also trapped moisture. Cattle farming, sheep ranching, then the farming of the same crop each year also stripped the grasses that anchored the soil.

2) Over-farming, poor soil stewardship left the soil dehydrated and lacking in organic matter. During a massive drought that hit the United States in the 1930s, the lack of rainfall, snowfall, and moisture in the air dried out the top soil in most of the country's farming regions.

3) Drought " when the rains did not come there was no vegetative coverage to hold the land down. The wind would pick up the dirt and create these massive dust storms."

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July of 1934, 80 percent of the country was affected by drought," says Heim, NOAA. At peak the drought went from the West Coast, to the Great Plains, to the Midwest and the East Coast

The effects could be seen as far as the Lincoln memorial.

Causes: 1) Farmers plowed up the topsoil which the native grasses of Great Plains. After a crop, they burned off the roots, destroying any nutrients.

(Environmental) winds blow hard on the Great plains. These pick up the bare dirt and blow it southward. The drought (Environmental) did not give sufficient moisture to moisten the dirt to grow a new crop.

The dirt blowing in was black, (Kansas and Nebraska) dirt blowing southward. The storms approached from the north. Dust Bowl and the Weather

Education- Farmers had to be educated The FDR administration in 1933 began programs to conserve soil and restore the ecological balance of the nation. Soil Erosion Service,was formed, then reorganized and renamed the Soil Conservation Service. It is now known as the Natural Resources Conservation Service to educate and emphasize anti-erosion techniques, crop rotation with an alternate crop such as Sorghum, allow a portion of farmland to lie fallow a season to promote that portion of land to recover its nutrients and "crop rotation, strip farming, contour plowing, terracing..

Drought Relief Service brought cattle into counties designated as emergency.

Contour plowing.

Roosevelt's Soil Conservation Service with the contour plowing, crop rotation and education of Farmers to rotate their crops farmers alleviated this.

The drought occurred again in the 1950's. Two more Black Dirt Storms occurred, which as the 1935 storms, approached from the North, bringing Kansas dirt down into Texas. This author remembers attending school, the room was as dark inside as it was outside. (the Black dirt). Breathing was difficult. At 3:00 PM, in the spring, snow began falling, causing black snow balls to fall. ^[1]

This may have contributed to some people with adult onset asthma.

Affected Victims

• Fannie (Ralls) Richardson Chronic Adult onset Asthma
• James Ralls Richardson Chronic Adult onset Asthma

Sources:

1. ↑ Memory of Mary Richardson

• https://tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/ydd01

• https://www.weatheringtexas.com/the-dust-bowl/

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dust_Bowl

• PBS Dustbowl