American settlers have long been attracted to the prairies in the Midwest (present-day Kansas). At the end of the 19th century, young, strong workers went there with all their simple belongings to develop new lands. They built houses, laid roads, equipped farms … And in a relatively short period of time they managed not only to populate the vast prairies, but also to turn the wild, sun-scorched steppe into fertile lands. Wheat was ripening everywhere, the harvest of which brought good income. Herds of thoroughbred horses, cows and buffaloes appeared. Kansas became known as the "breadbasket" of the United States, and cowboys - the gallant guys. It seemed that in these deserted and sunny places, man and nature have forever found harmony and unity.
But the harmony turned out to be illusory and did not last long. Every year there was a drought for many months, crop failures occurred, and livestock died from lack of forage. True, time passed and after a rather long hiatus, clouds reappeared in the sky, it was raining, balance was restored, and life returned to its usual course. But again, not for long.
For many decades, the fields were sown with the same agricultural crop, for decades flood meadows did not appear in these places, violations in crop rotation were constantly allowed … And all this ultimately led to the fact that in the early 1930s on significant sown areas soil erosion appeared. The once fertile land was depleted, began to crack, crumble and erode over vast areas. Large harvests quickly came to naught, the livestock was left without feed. The "bread barn" not only did not fill, on the contrary, it was empty every day. The brave cowboys are depressed …
And in 1935, on these vast expanses, such a drought began, which the old-timers could not even remember. She at one moment crossed out all the achievements of man for several decades and doomed hundreds of thousands of people to extinction. One day, the flowering prairies of Kansas and the oases of nearby states - Colorado and Texas - turned into arid, rocky and barren lands. The foliage on the trees turned yellow and flew around ahead of time, the grass turned gray and unsuitable for the consumption of livestock. Man, the conqueror of nature, was powerless in front of her.
In 1935, an extensive network of weather services did not yet exist, and only ten percent of US farms had electricity. Therefore, not every family had a radio, and alarming reports of an approaching wind were received only in large villages and cities. To individual farmers, whose farm was on the outskirts, they did not reach at all. But, in addition to the winds after a snowless winter, the sun that appeared in the sky also made few people happy. Not a single cloud, not a single snowflake, not a drop of rain … Only the incessant wind … The earth dried up, and the seedlings, not even having time to rise, perished. The wind and the sun seem to have conspired to destroy everything that was done with great difficulty by man.
The sand carried by the wind penetrated into the dwellings and filled the wells. The wind blew away the most valuable thing - fertile soil. Black storms carried away the land for many hundreds of kilometers, and in place of the black earth they brought yellow, lifeless sand.
At first, the farmers still hoped that the wind would calm down and the dryness would pass, eventually clouds would appear in the sky and a blessed rain would fall. Crises in this area have happened more than once before. But this time nature was raging in earnest. Sand covered not only fields, but also houses; in many villages, dwellings turned out to be "drowned" by the windows in the sand. People were suffocating from the constantly airborne sand, many of them suffered from lung diseases. But hospitals were not everywhere, and there was a shortage of medicines and dressings. Even the hardened and accustomed settlers were not ready for such a severe test. The impending disaster threatened not only with hunger, but also with death.
And again the great migration began. Now already forced and in the opposite direction - the brave cowboys left their farms. Hundreds of thousands of people with their entire family and belongings were removed from their acquired places, moving behind carts. And some simply went on foot to more prosperous and well-fed states.
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They tried to take out the sick in cars, but often on the way they were overtaken by a sandstorm, and then the poor fellows could only rely on God. The sand was so fine and corrosive that it even got hammered into the engine and there was no way to start the car again. On the lifeless land, sick people were forced to trudge on foot for tens of kilometers. Many did not reach the goal, fell and died.
An entire expressway in Springfeld, Colorado, has disappeared under the shallow dunes. Nobody counted how many people were buried under them. An expressway in South Dakota has disappeared under the sand. All attempts of local firefighters and military to clear it up to nothing - the wind blew up the mountains of sand again in one day. The planes that flew to help the refugees sometimes had to return - sandstorms did not allow landing.
Erosion has captured not only the fertile lands of Kansas, it spread to the lands of the states of Colorado and Texas.
An unprecedented drought lasted for five months. It brought great misfortune to the Americans: hundreds of dead people, dozens of villages and towns disappeared from the map of the country … Three million farmers employed in agriculture in three states were homeless and were doomed to join the army of the unemployed. In five months, hundreds of landowners and farm machinery manufacturers crashed on the Chicago financial market, and 75 percent of the three states' wheat crops were lost.
In 1936, all agriculture in the United States of America was on the verge of collapse. In June 1936 alone, the country suffered losses of $ 150 million. The state of Kansas was almost completely depopulated - dry land and winds drove people from their homes. No government promises to provide the necessary assistance could no longer deter anyone. Famine and drought proved stronger than faith in government promises.
This natural disaster of 1935 taught the Americans a lot. The prairie she had once conquered had gone too dearly. Since 1937, specialists from the Department of Agriculture have taken up the new development of the former fertile lands of Kansas. The government also began to provide assistance to local farmers, providing the necessary loans. Agronomists and ameliorators have established that special canals should be dug between the sown fields and abundant artificial irrigation should be established. In addition, it is periodically required to sow the soil with different crops.
HUNDRED GREAT DISASTERS. N. A. Ionina, M. N. Kubee