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Surviving the Dust Bowl (1998)

Name: Surviving the Dust Bowl
Director: Chana Gazit
Genre: Documentary
Released: 1998-03-02
Duration: 55 min
Rating: 9.0
Cast: Liev Schreiber, Matthew Modine

IMDb 9.00h 55mDocumentary

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Plot Summary

In 1931 the rains stopped and the "black blizzards" began. Powerful dust storms carrying millions of tons of stinging, blinding black dirt swept across the Southern Plains — the panhandles of Texas and Oklahoma, western Kansas, and the eastern portions of Colorado and New Mexico. Topsoil that had taken a thousand years per inch to build suddenly blew away in only minutes. One journalist traveling through the devastated region dubbed it the "Dust Bowl." This American Experience film presents the remarkable story of the determined people who clung to their homes and way of life, enduring drought, dust, disease — even death — for nearly a decade. Less well-known than those who sought refuge in California, typified by the Joad family in John Steinbeck's "The Grapes of Wrath," the Dust Bowlers who stayed overcame an almost unbelievable series of calamities and disasters.