Black Blizzard of Dust

Manawatu Times, Volume 62, Issue 42, 19 February 1937, Page 7

Black Blizzard of Dust

PLIGHT OF AMERICAN PARMERS. GUYMON (Oklahoma), Feb. 17. The third black blizzard within three days raged here. Farmers wearing dust masks have made preparations to throw up protective bulwarks with clods on their low-lying lands. Visibility was reduced virtually to zero and automobile traffic was stopped. A cloud of powdery grey dust sifted over the Texas Panhandle and reduced visibility to 300 feet in several places.

APPEAL POR STATE HELP. Received Thursday, 10.50 p.m. NEW YORK, Feb. 18. Some farmers are demanding Government relief and have planned to write to Congressmen asking for Government jobs so that they could eat while they battled with the dust. It is pointed out that the .State made liberal contributions to flood relief and they are now as badly off as the flood sufferers but nothing is being done to help them. The schools are closed, streeet lights burned all day and there is a shortage of dust masks. The wind-blown top soil spread a haze over parts of Kansas, Texas and Colorado. All public gatherings are forbidden at Hugoton, Kansas. Church basements are being used as emergency hospitals and the Red Cross chapter has wired a request for nurses to help the doctors handle the influenza and pneumonia which have been aggravated by dust and have caused eleven deaths in the town.