Are you?
Granted, I haven’t been watching the news like I generally do, so maybe I’m just missing it.
I know there are lots of things going on. The government shutdown. The Kardashians. Miley’s twerking. Miley’s naked ball romp. Etc etc etc.
But seriously- this one has my head and heart spinning, and I cannot understand why there is no coverage on this. As of today, I’m finding sporadic coverage, and mostly only the ag sites are really talking about the real losses. Today, I’m seeing a few other sites starting to report on this, but where is the media when you really need them?
The snow storm Atlas has resulted in the loss of 20-50% of some herds in South Dakota. I’ve seen a write-up from a lady who lost 10 of her 13 horses.
I’ve seen comments on some of those sites by people saying the loss of cattle was due to humans being irresponsible. And that just makes my blood boil.
REALLY?! So, you think that tens of thousands head of cattle lost were because ranchers don’t care about those animals?
That tells me that the folks making those comments are flat ignorant.
Calves going to market {which would have happened soon} bring in about $1,000 a head. Grown cattle bring on average about $1,500. We’re talking about HUGE numbers of cattle. We’re talking about people’s livelihoods- not just money lost from selling this year, but breeding stock which is an investment for the future.
And to say that the ranchers don’t care about their cattle is as stupid as it gets. They don’t get paid if they don’t care. You can’t survive if your means of income is dead.
Ranchers will haul out water over thousands of acres during dry years. Ranchers will pay to have hay dropped during storms when they cattle get stranded. If ranchers can prevent harm from coming to their cattle, they will do whatever they can.
So what was so bad about this storm that caused all these animals to die? I mean, surely, South Dakota is no stranger to winter storms, right?
Um, you know this is still early October, yes?
While parts of Canada see winter year round, 😉 South Dakota wasn’t quite ready for a storm of this magnitude.
To begin with, this one snuck in under the radar. There were no warnings that this would be as bad as it was.
First came the rain- 12 hours of soaking rain.
Then came the snow. 4 feet of snow in 48 hours. That’s an inch of snow every hour, for 2 days.
As if that wasn’t bad enough, the wind was blowing, too. Winds were clocked at 60 mph, with 70 mph gusts. Y’all, that’s nearly hurricane force winds.
If you’ve not experienced a lot of snow, let me tell you why that’s a problem. Snowfall is bad enough, but when it blows, you’ve got drifts of snow. Many of those drifts were measured to be 7 to 8 feet high.
This is how houses get buried.
This is how animals get buried.
If you’re still wondering why so many animals died from this storm and yet manage to stay alive during the winter, let me fill in the blanks.
Grazing lands are rotated. Winter grazing lands are usually closer to other structures, like houses. They are often on higher ground, too, which makes getting to them easier. These animals hadn’t been moved to the winter grazing lands yet because it’s October.
The other key element of this is timing. Another two months, and the cattle and horses would have been equipped to handle this storm. Soaking rain causes more problems than just snow because it lowers body temperature more rapidly.
The bigger factor, though, was that because this came in early October, the animals had not yet grown their winter coats.
If you have a dog, you’ll know what I’m talking about.
Horses and cattle are no different. They grow winter coats just the same and shed out come spring. They didn’t have their longer winter hair. You try standing out in freezing rain and then snow without a coat and see how long you last.
And yet, somehow, these ranchers, who’ve now lost their livelihoods for years to come, are somehow responsible for a freak storm courtesy of mother nature??? 😡
Adding insult to injury, this storm couldn’t have come at a worse time, what with the government being shut down and all. There aren’t even any relief agencies available to help out right now.
Thousands of people are still without power, although they’re working on it.
So while most folks are busy watching the news and talking about fluff and the government, life and devastation are happening for people who need help and aren’t getting any because news outlets are too wrapped up in junk to report actual news.
I’m pasting in some pictures below. Be forewarned that they are graphic and heartbreaking. I’ll put them in after the other links for more information on this devastating storm.
Wow! I’m amazed that even with the massive rain beforehand, there was no one monitoring to see that it was switching to snow.
I hope they can rebuild the herds.
It wasn’t supposed to change to snow, and by the time it did, it was too late to move the cattle. You don’t just move thousands of cattles hundreds/thousands of acres in a few hours. 😥
Some of them, I’m sure, will never recover. It can take a generation or more to get a large herd well established and thriving. If anyone is buying beef, now is the time to do it, because the fall intake won’t be there. I’ll be surprised if prices don’t soar.
And now they have to deal with the cleanup- they can’t just leave this amount of carcasses out there to rot- disease would be rampant, not to mention the smell. When the bull across the street died, we were gagged out of the house for days {so gross}. They are working to remove/render them as quickly as they can, but this is a huge undertaking, to say the least. And most places still don’t have power back yet.
I saw pictures of horses that had gotten trapped in fencing- heartbreaking. Ti have a storm that deadly and that hard- tough. I couldn’t imagine being out on horseback in that kind of driving snow, trying to get through 7 ft drifts to move cattle. Ugh ugh ugh.
guapo, you’re an ass. you’re saying these people lost their animals because they weren’t paying close enough attention. nature doesn’t care if you’re paying attention or not. imagine helplessly watching the destruction of what you love most in the world. that’s what these people had to do.
Ftr, I don’t think he’s being an ass. 😀 I think there’s a general lack of understanding of what this storm was and the geography involved.
Most people don’t understand the land mass and geography of the west and have no real experience with wind or that kind of precipitation.
I’ve seen comments from folks who survived a recent storm in Alberta (which I never heard about) that had loss, but later came back to apologize because they hadn’t understood the magnitude of this storm, which was *vastly* more severe than the one they had.
I mean, horses are still buried in 20ft snowdrifts!
This is what I’m trying to helps folks understand.
Yes, there are some that are ignorantly critical, and who refuse to really grasp what happened. I’m not sure Guap is in that category, though.
Thanks for stopping by! I’m glad that word is finally getting out about this storm. 🙂
Actually no, that’s not what I said at all.
But hey, thanks for the comment.
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Oh how horrible. I didn’t hear anything about this on the news! Maybe they think it’s not in keeping with their “global warming” conditioning. I feel so sorry for those farmers. It couldn’t have come at a worse time!
It could not have, I agree. And because of the shutdown, there’s not even any one out there able to give advice about what they would realistically need to do! Local organizations have some suggested measures in place in the event that they can be reimbursed, but since the gov’t agencies are shut down, there’s really no telling if they ever will get reimbursement, relief, or help.
I saw a comment on another piece where the person said “if you really loved your animals, you’d build shelters every 20 acres.” Um, ok?
If the average ranch/farm is 414 acres and you build a shelter every 20 acres, that’s 21 shelters. And if those ranches have, on average, 44 cattle, well, you can think about how much shelter they need, and then how much it’s going to cost for each shelter.
That aside- what happened with this blizzard is that it killed the cows that were already IN the shelters. She doesn’t seem to get that shelter would not have actually prevented loss! I saw a picture of a buffalo buried up to his neck in snow.
This storm buried houses. You don’t have sustained winds clocked at 40-60 mph with gusts up to 80 mps (hurricane force winds) and think you are not going to have loss.
Shelter might have helped some cattle some, depending on location. But when you are talking about thousands of acres, it’s just not feasible.
Add to this the fact that it wasn’t just the snow that buried them, but the hypothermia that got them because they didn’t have their winter coats grown in yet.
There are just some weather events in life that can’t be planned for or avoided, and this was one of them. It just makes me so angry for those kinds of people to be all on their high horses blaming the ranchers and saying, “If you really cared, you would have…..” That is someone who very plainly doesn’t get any of this- doesn’t get ranching, doesn’t get cattle, and certainly doesn’t get the ranchers who have them.
{/rant}
I am very, very glad to see the various Facebook pages and organizations setting up communication locations for folks to find their animals and get some relief. This is not over by a long shot.
I agree with you on every count. Those people who left those comments are obviously oblivious to the fact those animals weren’t pets, they were the families’ livelihood! Duh! And no shelter isn’t going to help when the animals don’t have their winter coats yet! It’s a wonder there weren’t any people killed. That is some scary weather and as you pointed out, why haven’t we heard one single thing about it on the news! The whole thing is just such a tragedy. Good for you for getting the world out!
I am doing what I can. Things are melting and there is a layer of water from the rain and then the grass. I’ve seen pictures of houses that got buried, too. I just wrote again and linked to other stories- people digging out cattle and finding them barely alive- taking them back to give them food and whatever life-saving measures they can.
Don’t ever {not you personally, of course, but the ignorant folk} try to tell me ranchers don’t care- I know several, and they do whatever is humanly possible for their animals. They do whatever they can to help them, whether it’s pulling calves in the middle of the night and taking calves back to the house or whatever.
We haven’t heard anything because the modern media is a joke, owned and operated by folks who only care about pulling certain strings…….. 😡
Again, I agree 100 percent with what you’re saying. It’s so easy for people to sit behind the ivory towers of their computer screens and judge something they know absolutely nothing about and your also right that the media is a joke!
It’s frustrating, isn’t it? I often want to shout, “Report some REAL news!! Give us something UNBIASED!!” Alas, not only can I not shout loudly enough, but I clearly don’t have enough money to make a difference with the media. Meh. 😉
It is frustrating! I really don’t watch or listen to any news anymore. And I gotta say I’m much happier because of it! I figure most of it isn’t worth knowing about and the rest of it is hogwash! HA! I’m a little cynical I’m afraid! 😀
That’s the truth right there. 😆 I had to catch myself because I haven’t watched the news in eons, but I could turn the tv on. Just hard to justify when there’s so much reading that can be done. 😉
So true! 😀
Google: geo-engineering, HAARP, Agenda 21… You may find out why our weather has been so radical lately. Check it out; The height of ignorance is to reject an idea about which you know nothing and refuse to investigate.
Thanks for stopping by, Johnny.
As I see it, the earth has always had cyclical weather with periods of life-ending severe weather. Just people humans are on the planet doesn’t mean that’s going to change. 🙂
I would also agree that there is sorely a lacking of critical thinking and investigative research these days. 😀
Oh DEAR GOD! I hadn’t heard of any of this until now. I can’t believe that people are actually blaming the ranchers for this!!!! I have 2 horses of my own and can’t even imagine what these people are going through, I wish people would remove their heads from their collective butts and think about what they are saying and of the after math of this storm is going to be like for all of us. I live in lower Mississippi and I know that were are going to feel it here. the price of beef is going to sky rocket . I know how it feels to lose everything and not get any help. Those ranchers are in for a lot of heart ache in the years to come trying to rebuild their herds. How can any one blame them for this loss. That’s like blaming the guy who got laid off, or fired because the company downsized it just blows my mind that people are really that stupid and arrogant to blame these people and say that they didn’t care. I know that rancher are some of the heartiest people that god created and that the care for their animals with there whole heart! I have seen them get up early and do with out so that they can tend their herds. I watched my grandfather do it my whole life. I just cant get over them being blamed for what mother nature did! While there at it why don’t they blame the destruction of the Gulf Coast and New Orleans on the people who live there. I will being praying for the ranchers and their families that by his grace they are able to hold on and rebuild, and I will also be praying that stupid people learn to keep their mouths shut, or at least their comments to them selves. God bless the American ranchers and cowboys still holding true to our way of life.
Amen, Jennifer, amen.
It makes me SO so angry to see that kind of attitude. It really speaks to the complete ignorance of the person complaining.
One of the first pictures I saw was the one of three horses {deceased} stuck in the fence. I nearly got sick. I think when you have animals {we have 6 horses and the chickens, of course}, it really hits home- and hits hard.
I was crying, reading about the lady who lost her barrel racing stallion. By the time she got to her house, the water was too deep to get to him and bring him and the others in. And then she sat in her house, watching the snow bury them, while listening to the wind howl. For those folks who have never lived with high winds, it’s hard to grasp what that means.
I acutely feel what she must have been going through- knowing her good friend was out in that and there was literally nothing she could do for him and the others. And knowing how scared they were- and cold……………. 😥
Coming from NM, we lived with the wind like that. We always said there were two seasons- windy, and hot and windy. Those kinds of winds, you can hardly stand upright in, much less try to lead/drag freaked out horses through rain sodden and flooded pastures. And it’s physically blinding. Any kind of water coming down with those kinds of winds pelt and is physically painful.
But ya, those ranchers were negligent and caused the animals to die. 🙄
Given what it takes to build herds like that, I can only pray that they will recover. It’s going to take years, if ever. My heart just breaks for them.
I am hoping we can get the word out so more people will actually hear about this.
Thanks for stopping by.
Very sorry for the loss of life in South Dakota, sounds catastrophic. While I had heard of the storm (in Georgia), I had no idea it was this extreme until I my son mentioned it to me (he’s in North Dakota). It’s a shame and disgrace that the media has ignored this situation. I’ll be thinking of you and sharing info to my friends on FB. Take care – K.
Thank you, Kathleen. I am still baffled as to why this isn’t being shouted from the rooftops. Seriously?! This is catastrophic, and not just to those in South Dakota! The entire industry is going to be feeling this, in addition to South Dakota and surrounding areas, because this drives the economy there.
While I’m doing my piece on the other side of the country, my heart and thoughts and prayers are with those that are still without power, and those that are still digging out {literally} trying to find their animals. They obviously have their hands full, but if I can pass on information and maybe it helps someone there, then that’s what I’ll do.
I’ve seen folks offering calves and heifers; I’ve seen where folks are feeding horses that aren’t theirs while they try to find the owners; I’ve seen where folks are posting and sharing what animals have wandered onto their land and what their brands are if they have them.
Real people are helping each other, despite the lack of media. I did see a single news outlet had an article on their website. Hopefully, if everyone keeps sharing information on this disaster, mainstream media will get a clue and finally react as it should have from the beginning.
Thanks for stopping by and for sharing this info. 🙂
GOD BLESS SOUTH DAKOTA AND RANCHERS. SORRY FOR YOU ALL..ILL NEVER BITCH ABOUT 20 inches of RAIN again.ON MY HONOR.ITS been 70 plus degrees at my house every day in october.WINDY and DRY.ILL pray FOR you.DAVID
Thank you, David. Reports are coming in that this is the worst storm that anyone can remember. I’ve seen pictures of entire structures crumpled from the snow load. It’s no wonder animals were buried in snow drifts. One report had animals buried in 20 ft snow drifts, that they have to wait to have melt before they can get to their horse(s) underneath it all.
Devastating.
Thanks for stopping by.
It Is Truly Heart Breaking And i Heard On the Blaze that Over 5 Feet Of Snow and Over 75ooo head of Cattle. i looked on Twitter Every where and Finally Heard The rest of the story here I Was Raised on A Farm And We Valued our cattle And horses and mules.This i Believe Is just The Beginning Of Worse things This nation Has Deserted The God Of Abraham Issac And Jacob And Until This nation Repents It Will Get Much worse Not That those ranchers Are guilty the whole nation is Going to Feel the wrath of god Just one Mans opinion
Today, it’s a week later and I still have yet to see this on mainstream news. Thanks for stopping by, Lee. 🙂
I send my prayers and condolences to South Dakota. I am from Phoenix AZ and I didn’t hear about this at all. I just happen to see this article on a Fox News Facebook thread asking why it wasn’t being reported on. I have a friend who is a rancher in Colorado and if this happened to her family it would devistate them. I shared your article on my Facebook page. If there is anything else we can do please let me know.
I think the most we can do is to just keep sharing the information. So many are just now hearing about this, mostly through Facebook. The mainstream media is flat out shameful, and while folks are leaving comments on websites, I have only seen this reported on a single site online. Another post I wrote, I gave relief information. There is some good stuff out there to share.
Thanks for stopping by. 🙂
“their global warming conditioning”
This tragedy is entirely consistent with climate change. One of the least understood aspects of climate change is the impact on climate variability.
Agriculture has been successful over the last 10 thousand years because the weather has been predictable. I.e. We know we won’t get a winter storm in early October.
Climate change ends that. We will see freak winter storms in October, we will see killer frosts in late May. We will see long thaws that brings out the tender bus in March.
Not understanding the science of climate change and steeping ourselves in ignorance and denial is as bad or no worse than burying one’s head in the most recent pop tart exploit.
I am sorry for the losses of those farmers in South Dakota but understand it is only the beginning so long as we continue to pretend the laws of physics don’t apply to us because our politics rejects them.
As long as the earth has been around, there’s been climate change. The poles have shifted a few times before this current shift. I don’t know why humans think our mere prescence will change any of that. I’m pretty sure the dinosaurs didn’t see it coming. 🙂
I wonder if we’ll ever get back to the days where most folks grow their own food and keep animals for their own consumption. Probably not, given the vast numbers of city dwellers, who don’t actually have an idea of where their food comes from (how they don’t is honestly a mystery to me, but I’ve never been city locked, either. ;/)
I do think we need to start gearing up for a wild ride, all of us.
Thanks for stopping by. 🙂
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I live in South Dakota and saw the devastating destruction first hand. You cannot even imagine. Thank you for getting the word out. These ranchers need all the help they can get. Although some of them will not be able to continue because of their loss and the lack of help. This community has come together to help when we can. But that won’t be enough. The rest of the country needs to know. Because of the shut down, they won’t receive any help until this is resolved. All they can do is document their losses and wait.
I’ve had nightmares about this. The waiting is brutal in its own right. Not just the waiting for the government to get its act together, but waiting for some of those drifts to melt enough to get animals out of them that they know are there.
It still amazes me that more people don’t know about this, even now.
Thanks for stopping by. 🙂
The animal huggers out there are ALWAYS blaming people for things that happen to animals. A wolf could drop dead of a massive heart attack with NO HUMAN around and we’d STILL get blamed. I think if some how THEIR livelihood was effected like that of all those ranchers, they’d be wondering what to do to pay the bills or pay to maintain their precious hybrid cars.
I read one comment from someone who said, “Where is PETA now? Where are they with their shovels?”
I agree there needs to be some kind of balance. I’m pretty sure it could be done, but seems there are some who are so set in a rigid way of thinking that real progress {and help} can’t happen because they can’t see the forest for the trees.
Honestly, I couldn’t imagine trying to tow our horses with a hybrid. 😉
There are cases like this all over. One that comes to mind is trying to add the sand dune lizard to the endangered species list. Nevermind the shutting down of the primary economy for an entire section of the state; never mind the PEOPLE would be displaced and ruined……. or that it would shut down 20% of production in the lower 48; nor the impact on ranching there, etc etc. {http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/06/13/us-usa-environment-lizard-idUSBRE85C1M720120613}
There CAN be a balance, but not if there aren’t reasonable people around to make it happen.
Thanks for stopping by. 🙂
My kids are in FFA and 4H, and when we lost 1 pig we were devastated. I can only imagine the families who lost their entire livelihoods. My prayers are with each of them,and thank you for sharing what you can. It saddens me that more people are worried about trivial things like the bimbo shaking her a%% than with real life! Hopefully our government gets their head out of their a%% soon and realized the people they are to be representing and helping NEED help!
I agree completely, Nicole. We cry every single time we have a loss. {I’ve ranted on this recently, actually.}
It’s shameful for the media to have taken a ‘persona non grata’ attitude to this event and having basically no regard for reporting, as if somehow those animals and the ranchers don’t matter. Puh.
Thank goodness for social media, eh?
Thanks for stopping by. 🙂
….If the average ranch/farm is 414 acres and you build a shelter every 20 acres, that’s 21 shelters. And if those ranches have, on average, 44 cattle, well, you can think about how much shelter they need, and then how much it’s going to cost for each shelter….
Here, a trap is 414 acres. A pasture, several thousand. It takes 15-30 acres PER PAIR of cattle to run them. The Average rancher has 200 head. Some ranchers lost half of a 4k head herd. Some 65% of a 600 head herd. Cows are not made to live in shelters. A cow can handle -30 if she’ got a place to get out of the wind and food to put in her belly. This was a freak storm, plain and simple.
Also, it was always going to snow. It was just that they sorely under estimated the amount. I think the first estimates were 1-6 inches. NBD. It’s South Dakota. In October. That’s not strange. The amount of snow we got, that’s strange.
I searched for that data- and what came back was 414 acres. I’m like, that’s what- 2 cows? 😉 I have no idea where that number came from- maybe out east, but in the west, that’s like a backyard. 😆
Seriously, though, what’s the average- I’m thinking more around the order of 3,000- 5,000 acres, probably on the smaller side? And the pair is mom and baby, so we’re not talking two full grown heifers, either. Using that equation, 600 head would need 9,000 acres using 15 acres per head on the low end.
I think they probably would have done better if it hadn’t rained. Although, those winds are brutal. We had those regularly, and you had to literally hang onto small children once you fought your way out of your vehicle. I’m not sure that with those winds and the amount of snow at that time of year would have been a whole lot better. At some point, when you get buried, you can’t move and you can suffocate.
A month later, when their coats were in and they had been moved, too, I think we would have seen something different.
Keep on keeping on! Our prayers are with everyone who was affected
(including the town that got hit by the tornado in Nebraska that was part of this storm). I’d have been there with my shovel if I was able.
Thanks for stopping by. 🙂
Most of the ranches here are between 5-12k acres. 15 acres is pushing it. Here we double that to 30 acres, so we always have grass in a drought year and can still make hay. The wind blows pretty much perpetually in SD. You get used to it! 😉
That’s a lot like NM- we used to say we had two seasons- windy, and hot and windy. 😆 I’ve written a lot about the wind. There were times I literally had to hang onto my kids to hold them down, and it would take more than one of us to shut the car door.
It’s something, to feel your truck rocking as you are going down the road. And towing- better make sure you have plenty of $$$ on hand for filling up! Nothing like a good haboob, eh? 🙄
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Plain and simple, this was a man made storm!! They won’t cover it because they made it. They are experimenting with the chemistry in the atmosphere and this was the result of that test. When are people going to wake up to this weather modification that they are doing everyday?????
Do you have links that show this, Mitch? I am very interested in seeing the data that shows they were chemtrailing that area prior.
Thanks for stopping by!