At midday, Wheat Farmer Clyde Eveleigh stared out his front window near
Ulysses, Kans. His yard light, which turns on automatically when the
sky darkens, glowed dimly through clouds of gritty dust. “I'm guessing
that we got wiped out today,” he reported, “but I'm not about to go out
into the fields to find out—the air is so black I might get lost.” In
eastern Colorado, too, gusts of wind up to 90 m.p.h. scooped up the
drought-dry topsoil, hurling some five tons of the precious dirt off
each acre of land during a 24-hour storm. Observed Rod Johnson, a
federal agriculture official: “The eastern three-fourths of Kiowa
County is moving.” New Dangers. In a grimy arc, from Nebraska through the plains of Kansas
and Colorado, on into the panhandles of Oklahoma and Texas, scenes
right out of The Grapes of Wrath suddenly materialized in the swirl of
dust billowing up to 12,000 feet. The grit sifted into houses, causing
eyes to burn and coating tongues. As visibility neared zero, motorists
pulled to sides of roads, and highways were ordered closed. At week's
end the dust had blown over the southeastern states, turning the sky a
milky yellow. To many worried Westerners, the worst dust storm in some
20 years brought back memories of the Dust Bowl, a disaster that could
recur if there is no dramatic break in the lingering and worsening
drought. As people east of the Rockies choked, Californians were enjoying what
was a welcome phenomenon for that parched state: rain fell for five
days —the first substantial precipitation in eight weeks. At least
temporarily, the culprit responsible for much of the nation's wild and
freezing weather—the stationary high-pressure system off the
California coast—had broken up. Its departure allowed westerly winds
to carry clouds over the Rockies and dump long-overdue snow on barren
slopes in Oregon, Wyoming and Colorado. California's refreshed farmers
reveled in the rain, and mountain ski operators romped in the snow—but
federal weather experts warned of ominous signs that the blocking
pressure “high” might be reforming. It was also clear that the
accumulated moisture was but a drop in the bucket of water needed to
prevent massive crop failures, hydroelectric power shortages,
widespread economic losses, and mounting tensions over water
allocations this summer and fall. But the increasing prospect of a disastrous drought had ramifications
far beyond the West. It raised once again basic questions of how the
nation should use one of its most vital resources, just how much
population growth the available water can sustain. As the U.S. faced
what scientists termed the most serious drought conditions anywhere on
the globe, a world perennially short of food might not be able to look
to America to ease its hunger. Domestic food prices seemed certain to
increase, job layoffs could follow as water-and hydroelectric-hungry
industries are forced to reduce their operations. Added to the effects
of the East's frigid winter, the drought could pose new dangers of
inflation and unemployment, threatening President Carter's economic
stimulus and budget-balancing goals.
