The 1970 Lubbock Tornado

Painting by Thomas Hart Benton

(Wikipedia) The 1970 Lubbock tornado was a tornado event that occurred in Lubbock, Texas, on May 11, 1970. It was one of the worst tornadoes in Texas history, and occurred exactly 17 years to the day after the deadly Waco Tornado. It is also the most recent F5 tornado to have struck a central business district of a large city. Continued

Cyclone hits Mobeetie

Photo courtesy of the Texas State Historical Association

(Texas Day by Day) On this day in 1898, the Panhandle community of Mobeetie was devastated by a cyclone.
The community, considered the "mother city" of the Panhandle, developed from Charles Rath and Bob Wright's supply store on Sweetwater Creek at a buffalo-hunters' camp called Hidetown in 1874, and grew to 150 residents the following summer as a trading post for nearby Fort Elliott. The village was located at the southern end of the Jones and Plummer Trail and was a center of activity for the buffalo-hide trade. Continued

Dead Turbine

Hassell, New Mexico

High Plains Indoor Wear

If your little old stucco house is anything like mine, drafty, you may want to consider a fez from Fez-O-Rama, for those long cold nights in front of a book or computer. As we all know, those big Stetsons can get a little cumbersome inside.
I recommend the Sons of the Desert model, named for the 1933 Laurel and Hardy movie. It features a red velvet exterior and best of all, a warm embroidered lining.
The fezzes are all made in-house, somewhere in the good old US of A, referencing old-timey fraternal organizations (your great-grandfather probably wore one to his lodge meetings), more than the Ottoman Empire. They also sell a Marx Brothers model and all sorts of death metal, tiki, sci-fi, & Cthulhu looking items, though I prefer more traditional models. After all, if you can’t look silly in your own house, where can you?

Letter from Back East: The Labor Day Hurricane of 1935

The 1935 Hurricane memorial on Upper Matecumbe Key, Florida.

After World War One, veterans were offered a service bonus payable in 1945. And that was a fine and good thing, but along came the Great Depression and many of the veterans, displaced by the economic hard times, lobbied Congress to pay the bonus sooner.
In 1932 thousands of them demonstrated in Washington D.C. They set up a camp and there they stayed. President Hoover eventually ordered the marchers out of the city by force. It wasn't a pretty sight.
The next year the marchers returned and President Roosevelt persuaded many of them to take jobs building the Overseas Highway in the Florida Keys. While working on this project, they were hit by a hurricane on Labor Day, 1935. It was the most intense hurricane ever to make landfall in the United States. 164 Keys residents were killed that day, along with 259 veterans. The stories from this storm are gripping and I won't go into them here; there are several books that do a better job of it than I could in a little blog entry.
How does this relate to our area? It doesn't. It's just that some of those bonus marchers stayed at my grandfather's house in Washington D.C. all those years ago, and every Labor Day I wonder if any of them went down to work on the highway, and if any of them made it out alive.

Florida Keys at sunset, both photos Canon EOS 20D.

Rain, at last

Ima, New Mexico

The 1970 Lubbock Tornado

Painting by Thomas Hart Benton

(Wikipedia) The 1970 Lubbock tornado was a tornado event that occurred in Lubbock, Texas, on May 11, 1970. It was one of the worst tornadoes in Texas history, and occurred exactly 17 years to the day after the deadly Waco Tornado. It is also the most recent F5 tornado to have struck a central business district of a large city. Continued

Cyclone hits Mobeetie

Photo courtesy of the Texas State Historical Association

(Texas Day by Day) On this day in 1898, the Panhandle community of Mobeetie was devastated by a cyclone.
The community, considered the "mother city" of the Panhandle, developed from Charles Rath and Bob Wright's supply store on Sweetwater Creek at a buffalo-hunters' camp called Hidetown in 1874, and grew to 150 residents the following summer as a trading post for nearby Fort Elliott. The village was located at the southern end of the Jones and Plummer Trail and was a center of activity for the buffalo-hide trade. Continued

Black Sunday Dust Storm of 1935

 

(Wikipedia) Black Sunday refers to a particularly severe dust storm that occurred on April 14, 1935, as part of the Dust Bowl. It was one of the worst dust storms in American history and it caused immense economic and agricultural damage. It is estimated to have displaced 300 million tons of topsoil from the prairie area in the US. On the afternoon of April 14, the residents of the Plains States were forced to take cover as a dust storm, or "black blizzard", blew through the region.
The storm hit the Oklahoma Panhandle and Northwestern Oklahoma first, and moved south for the remainder of the day. It hit Beaver around 4:00 p.m., Boise City around 5:15 p.m., and Amarillo, Texas, at 7:20 p.m. The conditions were the most severe in the Oklahoma and Texas panhandles, but the storm's effects were felt in other surrounding areas. Continued

Spring

... can't come soon enough

Old House 119

I think we assume that ranch houses were low slung in order to adapt to the windy landscape,
I'm inclined to think it was simply a matter of expense.

Arctic cold stiffens Tulia

People and businesses and armies come and go, but the cattle remain.

(Texas Day by Day) On this day in 1899, Tulia, Texas, reported the coldest temperature ever recorded in the state--minus 23 degrees Fahrenheit.

This was part of the "Big Freeze," an infamous norther that killed 40,000 cattle across the state overnight. Continued

It hasn't rained in awhile

Just sayin'

A Windy Boy Leans Into The Wind

Dust storm. Cimarron County, Oklahoma, 1936,
Arthur Rothstein (Library of Congress).

(Bob Boze Bell) I was raised in a dusty, wind-blown town and I hated it. Not the town, but the dust and the incessant wind. In fact, part of the reason I moved to Cave Creek is because it doesn't blow—as much.
However, when I paint, I love dust! What's the old saying: You can take the boy out of the wind, but you can't take the wind out of the boy? It's something I know a little bit about. Here's just a taste from my Dust Archives: Continued

Grady under the clouds

Drought washed away

Rainy road in Quay County (Sixgun Siding)

(Eastern New Mexico News) ... For the first time in the 18-year history of the U.S. Drought Monitor Program, New Mexico is drought free.
This time last year, the Drought Monitor Program showed that 87 percent of the state was experiencing drought conditions at some level. At that time, Curry and Roosevelt counties were classified as experiencing “moderate drought.”
No more. Continued

Q: What do you think of stormwater management in Clovis, NM? A: I think it would be a good idea.

Flooded Grand.

Waiting for the water to recede so that I can drive to work - an all too often occurrence.

Monsoon Madness

Storm over Broadview, New Mexico (Sixgun Siding)

(True West) ... We’ve had it up to here with the 24/7 oven blasts and we’re all about to have a psychotic break. The weather seems to sense this and uncannily matches our mood, with wild swings of weather from hot to cool, sprinkles to deluges. Continued

Rainy, rain, rain

Nara Visa, New Mexico

Clouds over the tracks

Fort Sumner, NM