The Worst Hard Time

The Worst Hard Time, by Timothy Egan, brings to life the tragedy of the Dust Bowl, the unending, severe drought and massive dust storms that magnified the already devastating impacts of the Great Depression.  Egan sets the stage by reviewing the governmental and economic policies and practices that encouraged  famers and ranchers to settle the land without considering the importance of prairie turf  and available water. When all of the buffalo grass was plowed under and replaced with non-native crops, the land was at the mercy of the lack of water and abundance of wind.  The rest, as they say, is history.

Through interviews and documents, Egan focuses on how climate, technology, and  poor governmental policy and planning destroyed the lives and livelihoods of families and their communities.  Numerous accounts tell of  developers' and realtors' promises of a rosy future that led instead to  hopelessness and despair as families fell deeper into debt,  first trying to sell crops in a depressed market and then trying to harvest any crops at all once the rains failed.  While some families were able to survive, others lost their farms to the banks and their loved ones, mainly children and old people, to dust pneumonia.  Egan describes dust storms that shattered windows, created huge drifts across roads, blinded people and cattle, and penetrated every crack and crevice of settlers' homes, leaving residents suffering with bronchitis, laryngitis, sinusitis, and pneumonia.

The author also discusses how the government and other agencies tried to respond to the crisis.  Red Cross centers sprang up in larger communities.  New Deal CCC workers planted trees in rows to try to curb wind damage.  Roosevelt authorized a study of what went wrong--was it climate change or a man-made disaster?  Should the government buy back land and replant with resilient grasses to hold the soil?   The book is a treasure chest of personal experiences and awe-inspiring statistics on what happened.  It reads like fiction and creates a vivid image of what a black blizzard was.  Highly recommended.