It b lew for three days. When it quit b lowing, dirt had drifted just like s now around our fenceposts. It could shear off grass at the roots, dig trenches, make mountains out of molehills. Drought creates dust, and it created huge amounts in the '30s, due in part to farming practices that encouraged erosion. The federal government intervened, paying farmers to allow their acres to revert to grasslands and teaching them ways to retain moisture and soil.
Irrigation takes the edge off drought and helps the dust settle.
It covers 140,000 square miles from South Dakota to Texas, a quadrillion gallons of water. But even that can't last forever. The Ogallala covers almost the entire state of Nebraska, but in Colorado, it does not equally bless those in its path. The groundwater saturation extends deepest near Holyoke. But around Burlington, where the aquifer is at its shallowest, they joke about its longevity.