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N0KFQ > TODAY 11.05.11 18:12l 58 Lines 2735 Bytes #999 (0) @ WW
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Subj: Today in History - May 11
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Sent: 110511/1636Z 7645@KB0WSA.MO.USA.NA BPQ1.0.4
Dust storm sweeps from Great Plains across Eastern states
On this day in 1934, a massive storm sends millions of tons of
topsoil flying from across the parched Great Plains region of the
United States as far east as New York, Boston and Atlanta.
At the time the Great Plains were settled in the mid-1800s, the
land was covered by prairie grass, which held moisture in the
earth and kept most of the soil from blowing away even during dry
spells. By the early 20th century, however, farmers had plowed
under much of the grass to create fields. The U.S. entry into
World War I in 1917 caused a great need for wheat, and farms
began to push their fields to the limit, plowing under more and
more grassland with the newly invented tractor. The plowing
continued after the war, when the introduction of even more
powerful gasoline tractors sped up the process. During the 1920s,
wheat production increased by 300 percent, causing a glut in the
market by 1931.
That year, a severe drought spread across the region. As crops
died, wind began to carry dust from the over-plowed and
over-grazed lands. The number of dust storms reported jumped from
14 in 1932 to 28 in 1933. The following year, the storms
decreased in frequency but increased in intensity, culminating in
the most severe storm yet in May 1934. Over a period of two days,
high-level winds caught and carried some 350 million tons of silt
all the way from the northern Great Plains to the eastern
seaboard. According to The New York Times, dust "lodged itself in
the eyes and throats of weeping and coughing New Yorkers," and
even ships some 300 miles offshore saw dust collect on their
decks.
The dust storms forced thousands of families from Texas,
Arkansas, Oklahoma, Colorado, Kansas and New Mexico to uproot and
migrate to California, where they were derisively known as
"Okies"--no matter which state they were from. These transplants
found life out West not much easier than what they had left, as
work was scarce and pay meager during the worst years of the
Great Depression.
Another massive storm on April 15, 1935--known as "Black
Sunday"--brought even more attention to the desperate situation
in the Great Plains region, which reporter Robert Geiger called
the "Dust Bowl." That year, as part of its New Deal program,
President Franklin D. Roosevelt's administration began to enforce
federal regulation of farming methods, including crop rotation,
grass-seeding and new plowing methods. This worked to a point,
reducing dust storms by up to 65 percent, but only the end of the
drought in the fall of 1939 would truly bring relief.
73, K.O. N0KFQ
Another old retired guy
E-mail: n0kfq@winlink.org
N0KFQ@N0KFQ.#SWMO.MO.USA.NA
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