On This Day in 1934: Dust Bowl Reaches The East Coast
One of the dustiest stretch of years on record stemmed from a bad drought season and poor farming habits. In fact, a dust storm carrying tons of particles across the U.S. struck the East Coast on this day in 1934.
Due to a devastating drought, the 1930s set a precedent in U.S. history. On the heels of the Great Depression, World War I and II, drought would stricken the land, making topsoil vulnerable to detrimental dust storms. This would lead to the Dust Bowl, a decade between 1930-1940 that saw an uptick of dust storms sweep across the central U.S.
A couple of things that did not help the central U.S. in their drought efforts was farming habits that prevented the soil from rebounding and a severe drought. This allowed for states such as Texas, Oklahoma and Kansas to be vulnerable to high winds, leading to massive erosion across the south-central Plains.
May 9, 1934 would begin a new chapter in the Dust Bowl saga as a massive dust storm kicked up over the Great Plains. The storm swept through the Mississippi Valley, including the Chicago metro as well as the Ohio Valley and East Coast. It was reported that over 12 million pounds of dust was moved over the course of two days, all originating from the severely dry Plains. By May 12, the dust storm would reach the East Coast, bringing a thick cloud of dust to Washington, D.C., and as far north as Boston.
When the dust settled, many Americans found themselves displaced by the wreckage left by the series of dust storms in 1934-1935. In fact, a half of a million people were left without a home thanks to the damage caused by the storms. Many states saw a multitude of people abandoning their homes due the conditions experienced during the storms. More than 75% of the topsoil in the Plains was removed by the storms experienced in the 1930s.
As a result, the U.S. government attempted to reduce this number by establishing relief efforts to teach farmers new and useful techniques to prevent over harvesting and plowing. President Roosevelt established an agreement with Canada to have more than 200 million trees re-planted across the states hit the hardest. This would be known as the Great Plains Shelterbelt in an effort to decrease wind erosion as well as increase soil moisture.
Source(s): United States of Department of Agriculture (USDA)
Story Image: Buried machinery in barn lot in Dallas, South Dakota, United States during the Dust Bowl, an agricultural, ecological, and economic disaster in the Great Plains region of North America in 1936. (Wikimedia Commons/USDA)
