The Bitter Draught

Into the powdery trough of the Southwest plains in recent weeks have come sporadic showers and light snows. To the dry-skinned farmers and ranchers who have been sitting out a searing drought for as long as eight years, the kiss of moisture on the crumbling land stirred a pulse-pounding flicker of hope; now, perhaps, seasonal rains would soak the ravaged soil, renew the empty springs. Last week the hoped-for moisture came. But it was a bitter draught.

Out of the Gulf of Mexico swept a curtain of snow. It whistled through the stricken plains (see map), lashing into the land under 80 m.p.h. winds. It piled up mountainous drifts, leveled windmills and fences, ripped up loose crops, killed about 100,000 precious head of cattle. Caught in the blizzard were thousands of homeowners and travelers. Aboard the Union Pacific's Denver-bound City of St. Louis, stopped in deep Kansas drifts, 213 passengers and crewmen huddled for two days, ripped down the train's drapes and curtains to keep warm. In Tascosa, Texas, 16-year-old Chester Simpson stubbornly set out on foot to keep a date with his girl 30 miles away in Amarillo, staggered to within four miles of the city's outskirts in the black night, died on a barbed-wire fence.

When the storm had spent itself, farmers and ranchers tried to assess the results. With the bad, there was good. Dodge City, Kans. soaked up 2.48 in. of precipitation, Amarillo got 1.45 in., Omaha, 1.91.

Even as they totaled their losses, many of the weather-beaten farmers in the dry country could take a philosophical, hopeful view. With fresh moisture in the soil of the Southwest, said weathermen, local evaporation may keep alive the kind of storm clouds that have been drying out as they moved across the parched land. Said H. L. Jacobson, chief meteorologist for the U.S. Weather Bureau at Kansas City: "That makes for a more favorable rain situation. In that respect spring is starting off beautifully." At week's end rains washed down into the area.

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