Human Displacement
- contributed to the Great Depression’s bank closures
- business losses
- increased unemployment
- lack of precipitation affected wildlife and plant life
- created water shortages for domestic needs.
- Millions of people migrated from the drought areas, often heading west, in search of work.
- poverty
- high unemployed migrants
- Families were forced to leave their farms and travel to other areas seeking work due to the drought
- 500,000 Americans were left homeless
- 350 houses had to be torn down after one storm alone
- largest migration in American history within a short period of time
Geographic Characteristics
- west of the High Plains
- Elevation ranges from 2,500 feet to 6,000 feet
- less than 20 inches of rain annually
- prone to extended drought, alternating with unusual wetness of equivalent duration
- During wet years, the rich soil provides bountiful agricultural output
- crops fail during dry years
- subject to high winds.
- Over 75% of the topsoil was blown away by the end of the 1930s
- Value of farmland declined 17%-28% per- acre
- 2.5 million individuals left the region and settled elsewhere as conditions worsened
- 200,000 individuals moved to California
- Around 500,000 Americans were left homeless
- Hundreds of individuals suffered health issues like dust pneumonia and malnutrition
Causes and Effects
- Settlement was encouraged by the Homestead Act
- An unusually wet period in the Great Plains mistakenly led settlers and the federal government to believe that "rain follows the plow"
- Technological improvements led to increase of mechanized plowing, which allowed for cultivation on a greater scale
- World War I increased agricultural prices, which also encouraged farmers to dramatically increase cultivation.
Madeline Kerr
Kelly Bell-Adams
Matt Hale
http://drought.unl.edu/DroughtBasics/DustBowl/DroughtintheDustBowlYears.aspx
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dust_Bowl
http://www.english.illinois.edu/maps/depression/dustbowl.htm
The storm was considered the worst storm of the decade in the west. At its peak it rose 20,000 feet into the air and stretched 1,000 miles across. 300 million tons of dust started its roll over the country. It was 6 tons of dirt for every U.S. citizen in the U.S.
Nothing is done by congress to start to fix this problem because they were already preoccupied by the depression, until the storm threatened Washington D.C.
description of the storm and some fixes that were brought about because of it