A commercial crop of sunflowers in South Dakota is stunted and doomed by the catastrophic drought that struck the United States in 1980. Precious top soil was also sacrificed to the season's wind errosion. From June to September the drought and the corresponding heat wave swept through the Central United States from Montana and North Dakota to the South Texas Plains and across to the East Coast, creating $ billions in damages and causing an estimated 10,000 deaths.

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