Volume 18 , Issue 12

1935 - Elements Kill 5 Oklahoma As Dust Sweeps In

This appeared in the Miami Daily News-record, Miami, Oklahoma, dated 25 March 1935, Monday, on the front page: "Storms Levy Anew On Plains States." Elements kill 5 Oklahomans; Dust sweeps in. Three drowned, two dead from lightning after weekend storms. New Havoc by silt. Damage already estimated in millions increased by latest onslaught.

Found on Newspapers.com

Monstrous dust clouds cruised over Oklahoma on that day in 1935 from the northwest, sifting over a land only momentarily freshened by weekend rains.

The rains brought another kind of hardship, flooded roads and fields. Highway 73, near McAlester, was blocked by the backwaters of Gaines creek, swollen by weekend precipitation which totaled 5.60 inches.

Dust blotted the sun to near obscurity at McAlester, while residents and prison officials repaired damage caused by a Saturday windstorm which leveled small garages, blew down chimneys, and unroofed prison barns and outbuildings. Dust clogged the air at Guthrie, respite 2.44 inches of rain over the weekend. Visibility at Oklahoma City was reduced to one mile. The weekend of floods, hail and thunderstorms claimed the lives of at least five Oklahomans.

A new dust storm swirled east over the plains states, adding to the fourth ravages already running high into the millions. In southeastern Colorado, where drouth beaten farmers were abandoning homes and plans were being made to move out half starved herds of cattle, dust still was blowing and the wind velocity increased.

The dust swept down over Oklahoma from the northwest. Visibility at Oklahoma City was reduced to about a mile. Driving across Kansas, the copper colored clouds reached western Missouri by late morning. Conditions were not as severe as in the last Wednesday's big blow, which carried a pall tot he Atlantic seaboard.

Scattered rainfall in Kansas was insufficient to lay the loose soil and the Topeka weather bureau forecast a continuation for the next day of the dust which had been flying nearly two weeks.

At Lawrence, Kansas, there was less than three blocks visibility at mid-morning. Over Central Kansas a high northwest wind before dawn brought in almost as much dust as in recent storms. The air cleared for a while, but new dust blew in.

Hubert L. Collins, Denver statistician for the Untied States Department of Agriculture, said thousands of acres of southeastern Colorado land would be useless in farming and grazing for 100 years or more and other crop experts pointed to the dust toll in the blowing wheat fields.

Collins predicted, on the basis of the present outlook, "The most complete crop failure in the history of the western plains region." He said he referred to eastern Colorado and Wyoming; western Kansas and Nebraska and the Texas and Oklahoma panhandle sections.

As the "black blizzard" continued, farmers, beaten by the prolonged storms after four years of drouth, began an exodus from he Colorado counties of Baca, bent and Prowers, and others planned to move their cattle.

Oklahoma crop authorities said wheat would approximate 50 percent of normal, withs he figure subject to wide variation int he event of more rain or more dust. Crop damage in Texas was said to be negligible compared to the loss of valuable soil.

F. K. Reed, federal statistician, said two weeks of dust storms had greatly dimmed wheat prospects in western Kansas. He estimated the crop, which last year ran about 12 million bushels, was 15 percent of normal.

Kenneth Welch, who was relief administrator had nearly 3/4 of the Baca county, Colorado, population to provide for in the last year (1934), expressed a belief that soil erosion control was the only possible means by which the section could be made habitable again. The problem of maintaining the residents during the several years required for such control remained unsolved.

Cattle refused to ea. The dust covered feed was a menace to the health of farm animals. In some sections cattle had refused to eat what green feed they could find because of the dirt and sand.

While Colorado physicians expressed the belief that "dust Pneumonia," caused by irritation of the lungs, no longer was an immediate danger, they had added that unless the atmosphere cleared, public health would be imperiled.

A desire to determine whether the dust had been an actual or contributory cause in the deaths of six persons near Springfield, Colorado, during the storm period, prompted the Colorado board of health to send airplanes put to take cultures up to two mile attitudes. Special germ culture plates were exposed in the dust laden skies at various heights.

Auto Engines were damaged. Damage to gasoline engines, especially those of motor cars, could not be estimated. Garagemen reported a flourishing business in some sections. Robert Israel, Wichita, Kansas, insurance man, said many claims had come for such damages, but underwriters were undecided where to place the liability. Fine sand filters into the motors in such quantities, Israel said, that after a few hours of driving, pistons, piston rings, cylinder walls and bearing were badly scarred.
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