TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — A gust of wind sweeps over bare soil, kicking up enough dirt and dust to cut visibility to nearly zero, and for drivers, the dust storm seems to come out of nowhere.
Such conditions resulted in a pileup on Interstate 70 last week in western Kansas involving dozens of cars and trucks that left eight people dead. Blinding dust on Tuesday also prompted New Mexico’s transportation department to close a 130-mile stretch of highway from the Arizona state line to the outskirts of Las Cruces.
Hazy or dust-darkened skies have recalled the “Dust Bowl” of the 1930s, when millions of tons of blowing soil buried farms and coated towns across the Great Plains. Lesser storms occur every year, particularly in the western U.S., particularly when farmland hasn’t been planted yet in the spring. Some scientists worry that many motorists don’t take them seriously enough.
“We have a very low level of public awareness of a dust storm and what damage it can cause,” said Daniel Tong, an associate professor of atmospheric chemistry at George Mason University who is among the authors of a 2023 paper on dust storm deaths.
Dust storms have a history of causing fatalities
The High Plains Museum in Goodland displays a photo of a tractor buried in blown soil in the 1930s, a reminder of the consequences of a severe drought across the Great Plains that came after farming had destroyed native grasses.
The fatalities Friday near Goodland were the first in the area in a dust storm since 2014, said Jeremy Martin, the Weather Service meteorologist in charge there.
But they came less than a month after an 11-car pileup on I-10 left three people dead, with heavy dust cited as a factor, according to Albuquerque TV’s KRQE. Similarly, a dust storm on I-55 between St. Louis and Springfield, Illinois, in 2023 led to a fatal pileup involving dozens of vehicles.
In 1991, 17 people died in an accident involving more than 100 vehicles on I-5 in California’s San Joaquin Valley, blamed on blowing dust.
Tong and four co-authors concluded in their paper published in 2023 in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society that there were 232 deaths from “windblown dust events” from 2007 through 2017, far higher than the number recorded by National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association data.
In January, he and four colleagues concluded that the economic damaged caused by wind erosion and dust is four times higher than previously calculated and more than $154 billion a year.
A cold front carried dust through western Kansas
Martin said a cold front moved through the area of the pileup after it had been warm and dry for six hours. Winds that reached 70 miles per hour (113 kph) kicked up dust that then became trapped in the cold front.
“That’s when you get that classic wall of dust,” he said.
As blowing dust cut visibility on the road to almost zero, drivers slowed down, causing collisions, authorities said.
A preliminary investigation found that 71 vehicles were involved, said Kansas Highway Patrol spokesperson April McCollum. Aerial photos showed at least 10 were semis.
“It was hard to even keep your eyes open outside because there was so much dust in the air,” said Jeremy Martin, the National Weather Service meteorologist in charge in Goodland. “It kind of stung to even breathe out in it.”
