Leading up to the Dust Bowl

The Dust Bowl occurred over an entire decade. The 1930's were spent dealing with one extreme after another. Some of these extremes included blizzards, tornadoes, floods, droughts, and dirt storms. Billie Jo and her family experienced dirt or dust storms for the most part. Billie Jo also experienced droughts as well. The government told farmers to plant more after World War 1. Farmers didn't rotate the crops. If you plant the same crop over and over again, the crop takes certain nutrients from the ground. By only planting one crop, you eventually run out of those nutrients. By palnting different crops, you allow the soil to replace those nutrients. After World War 1, the farmers only planted wheat. Wheat was a profitable crop, so it was planted year after year. By only planting wheat, the soil did not have a chance to replenish the nutrients the wheat needed in order to grow. Because of this, the ground became dry and soon farmers were having a hard time getting any plant life to grow. This is why when the wind blew hard enough, the soil would be picked up. This is what became known as dust or dirt storms.

The Midwest was the most effected by the Dust Bowl. 100 million acres in Texas, Oklahoma, New Mexico, Colorado, and Kansas were affected. The Great Depression had also hit the country. People in the Midwest depended on making a profit from the wheat. However the rain didn't come as expected. According to http://factoidz.com/facts-about-the-dust-bowl/, on May 9, 1934, a major dust storm started over the northern plains of Montana and the Dakotas and by night it had reached Chicago dumping an estimated 6,000 tons of dust. By the next morning the dust had reached Boston and New York where the streetlights came on at midday and cars had to use headlights. The dust storm was 1,800 miles wide. This is just one example of how destructive the dust storms were. (The picture below is not from the storm described above.)


A dust storm approaching a farm house





The area of the country that was effected by the Dust Bowl.


*All facts and information about the Dust Bowl and picture(s) in this post came from the following sources:

http://factoidz.com/facts-about-the-dust-bowl/

http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_states_were_affected_by_the_dust_bowl

http://www.nasa.gov/centers/goddard/images/content/95248main_theb1365.jpg
http://www.english.illinois.edu/maps/depression/dustbowl.htm