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Nature against humankind



One of the most tragic aspects of Depression in 1920s was the weather working against people. Floats and wind storms battered the North area and the eastern section of the country.

In the 1930s most of major rivers rose over their banks and floated the streets and towns in the East. In 1937 the Ohio River flood was one of the worst in the history. All in all, it destroyed the homes of half million people. Floats and windstorms in 1930s took life of 3678 people in the eastern part of the USA alone. The weather was a major problem in the North and the East. Throughout the entire USA, the summers were unusually hot and the winters unusually cold.

In the summer of 1936, the temperature in Kansas rose up to 37,7 °C and they had almost 60 days of heat. In July 1936 the temperature reached 49 °C. Throughout the United States the crops burnt up and people were miserable. The worst problem of Western countries was the combination of heat, drought and strong, hot, dusty wind known as “Black Blizzard”. People and animals suffered unbearably, the farm crops were ruined.

The ecologists had warned that The Great Plains will suffer an ecological catastrophe: “The nature had fooled us and we had overworked the land”. Great Plains Area expected 51cms of rainfall, that was the amount of annual rainfall over the year. Because of The Dust Bowl 100 counties in Colorado, Texas, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Nevada and Arkansas suffered from meager rainfall.

During the years when there was adequate rainfall, the land produced bountiful crops and new farms were established. But as the droughts of the early 1930s deepened, the farmers kept plowing and planting and nothing would grow. As a result, the cover vegetation of land was severely damaged. The ground cover that held the soil in place was gone. The Plains winds whipped across the fields raising...