Dust Bowl
By Kim and Kaitlin
Facts
- The Dust Bowl was a drought that covered the great plains in the 1930's.
- It destroyed thousands homes, lives, and dreams.
- The drought dried out all the land and the winds picked up all the loose sand and dirt and whirled it into clouds.
- It started in 1934 to 1937
- The reason it started was because the farmers tore up the protective layer in the prairie grasses exhausting the land
- The federal government helped the farmers replant trees and grass so that they could stabilize the soil and by 1941 the farmers were ok but during WWII the farmers made the same mistake and brought the drought on again by the 1950's
- About 2.5 million families abandoned their homes
- It was in parts of Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico, and Colorado
- Hundreds of thousands of families had gone to California or other Pacific Coast states
Homelessness
Dust Bowl left more than 500,000 families homeless.
Hopelessness
The dense clouds during the storm were known as "Black Blizzards"
Struggle
Families struggled to find jobs after the storm had passed
Summary
So basically the Dust Bowl was a terrible disaster that could have been prevented had the farmers not torn in to the prairie grasslands. The Dust Bowl destroyed thousands of lives. It was the big drought that America has ever seen.