Review Of Timothy Egan's The Worst Hard Time

In this work of non-fiction Timothy Egan expresses his wish for sounder government policy to avoid natural disasters. Egan’s The Worst Hard Time is a harrowing tale about farmers who decided to stay on the plains stretching across Texas’ panhandle, Oklahoma, New Mexico, and Colorado during the major drought in the 1930’s. The disaster, known as the Dust Bowl, is largely regarded as a human caused problem. Egan, who is a national correspondent on environmental issues for the New York Times, expertly incorporates historical facts from the time with real accounts from those who stayed. Although Egan sees farming as the direct cause of the drought, winds, and dust, he portrays his characters as hardy entrepreneurs who were duped onto unsustainable
They quickly tore up huge regions of recently settled grass-land to plant wheat. This quick change in topography caused high winds to blow off top soil that had been accumulating over millennia. High temperatures and dust storms ravaged the area killing animals and humans in its wake for most of the ‘30s. On April 14, 1935 the region saw its worst dust storm which rained more than 300,000 tons of dirt and dust. This day became known as Black Sunday because those who witnessed it said it blotted out the sun. The dry grass became fuel for praire fires that were sparked by lightning. Swarms of grasshoppers and rabbits plagued the region. In one story Egan describes a story in which the bunnies are brutally beaten while they’re assailants are still dressed in the Sunday best. The worst effect was the endless wind and dust. One young mother, Hazel Shaw, lost her baby daughter and grandmother within hours of each other to dust pneumonia. Using personal stories such as this, Egan tries to point out that this disaster could have been prevented with more cautious government