Drought Grips Midwest

Jan. 17, 2006 — -- Travis Briscoe's family has ranched in Oklahoma since the Land Run in 1889. He is the fifth generation to earn a living working the land and, like his grandfather, who survived the Dust Bowl in the 1930s, he is finding out what it's like to eke out a living during a drought.

"It's the worst I have ever seen. We are well below a foot of rain. … And we don't have any rain in the forecast," Briscoe said.

He scans the horizon every day looking for rain, rain that never comes. This is the driest it's been in the 111 years that records have been kept.

Richard Heims of the National Climatic Data Center is constantly running the numbers on rainfall in what he calls the epicenter of the drought. Northeast Texas rainfall is down 22 inches; southeast Oklahoma, down 25 inches; and southwest Arkansas, down 23 inches. That combination adds up to the driest year on record in that part of the country since 1895.

Briscoe doesn't need a rain gauge to know what that means for his family's ranch.

"It means it's dry. We have a chance of burning up every day," he said. "If the drought continues through the summer, or through the winter into the summer, then we won't have any crops and we won't have any hay and we have to sell the cows, and look for jobs elsewhere."

David Marshall of the Tarrant Regional Water District oversees water supplies in Fort Worth, Texas. He sees water reserves being used at rates he doesn't usually see until June.

"Our supply is dwindling and it is dwindling at an incredibly fast rate now, because of the fact that folks are just watering with the fear of fire," Marshall said. "If we use it now, we are not going to have it in the summertime."

Fort Worth resident Moira Taylor has watched the homes of others in Texas and Oklahoma burn and she vows that will not happen to her home -- so she keeps watering.

"We have to water just to protect our grass and the landscaping and also for protection from the fires that are so severe and so close and near to us," Taylor said.

So what has happened to the rain that is flooding the Pacific Northwest and California?

"As the storm systems move across the Rocky Mountains, they kind of get wrung out like a sponge, and as they get into the Plain states and the Midwest, a lot of that moisture is not there anymore," said Rick Smith of the National Weather Service.

Sherrie Suggs has a sweeping view of eastern Oklahoma from her kitchen window. She is so afraid of smoke on the horizon that she keeps her horse trailer hooked up to her pickup truck, so she can escape with her beloved horses without wasting time.

She has spent nights driving her horses around when the fires venture too close, and she is afraid her vigil won't end soon.

"I kind of muse about how the Dust Bowl era must have been just like this and maybe we are going to be in a long-term pattern," Suggs said. "I became almost obsessed with drought and the fire. And I think I could handle tornadoes and earthquakes a lot better than I could fires."

At Bills Fried Chicken in Corsicana, Texas, the talk is of little else besides the weather. Standing in the buffet line, waiting for the fried chicken to be served up, along with the cobbler and the potato salad, customers eye the forecast on the TV above the counter. Once again, there is no rain expected.