Nebraskans blinded by dust storms amid drought
Date: 24-May-02
Country: USA
"It's a terrible year. Nebraska is caught in the death grip of a drought and the topsoil gets blown around to where it's similar to a blizzard - visibility gets down to zero," said Capt. Darrell Fisher of the Nebraska Highway Patrol.
"We've issued advisories asking motorists not to drive unless they have to," said Terri Teuber of the Highway Patrol.
The advisories in the state of 1.7 million people were prompted by a 10-vehicle pileup on Wednesday in which two men died when a dense dust cloud blinded drivers and their pickup truck was wedged underneath a truck.
Fisher said patrolmen sent to untangle the mess returned with blackened faces and dirt caked in their ears. "It was like they had been working in a mine," he said.
An earlier pileup killed a truck driver in another of a series of accidents over the last month blamed on wind-blown soil, which some observers say have created the worst conditions since the 1930s-era Dust Bowl.
The 1930s drought persisted for as long as a decade, while the current dry spell in most of the U.S. Plains has been relatively short-term, experts said. Also, farmers have become more careful stewards of the land, installing windbreaks and irrigating where possible, said Mark Svoboda of the National Drought Mitigation Center at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.
"It has been dry, and when farmers turn the soil it's exposed to the wind. When winds got to 40 to 50 mph (65-80 kph), that soil was going to blow," he said.
A few sprinkles of rain and diminished winds temporarily dampened the risk of dust storms yesterday. "But with the sun out and the winds kicking up, that spells trouble," Fisher said.
Further west in the Pike National Forest in Colorado, a wildfire fueled by tinder-dry forests of ponderosa and lodgepole burned out of control, forcing evacuations.
The western region's fire season got off to an early start this year due to the drought and low humidity levels.
For Plains farmers, the cool, dry spring has slowed the growth of seedlings, with 42 percent of Nebraska's wheat crop rated in poor to very poor condition. In contrast, spring planting in the Midwest has been delayed by heavy rains that have swamped fields and caused river flooding.
