Apocalyptic dust storms once blackened American skies, causing destruction, disease and financial ruin on an unimaginable scale. Many say it could happen again.

BLACK BLIZZARD

A Two-Hour History� Special Invokes one of the Greatest Environmental Disasters of the 20th Century

Premiering October 12 @ 8 pm on HistoryTM

NEW YORK, SEPT. 30, 2008 � On May 9, 1934, a massive storm unlike any other darkened the skies over the Great Plains. As it marched east, it became a towering wall of soil and dust more than 10,000 feet high, carrying enough debris to fill dump trucks that could circle the planet�twice. That night, the storm hit Chicago, raining down some 12 million pounds of soil onto the city. Two days later, it reached New York, covering midtown Manhattan in brown drifts. The two-hour special BLACK BLIZZARD tells the riveting story of one of the greatest environmental disasters in U.S. history, which turned once-fertile parts of Colorado, Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas and New Mexico into a wasteland known as the "Dust Bowl." BLACK BLIZZARD premieres October 12, 2008, 8-10pm ET/PT on History�.

The dust storm of May 9, 1934 was one of countless others that ravaged the American heartland between 1930 and 1940. The storms created their own weather systems, generating winds up to 100 mph, sending temperatures soaring above 100 degrees and prolonging already dire drought conditions. They also spawned plagues of animals and insects, static electricity strong enough to knock a man down, disease and death. The impacts of the disaster would have epic consequences for the land, the people and the country as a whole. Yet incredibly, the Dust Bowl was no natural disaster, but the preventable result of 70 years of man-made decisions. And some say it could happen again today.

For the first time on television, scientists and special effects experts re-create the "black blizzards," showing in fascinating detail how the storms formed, and how they affected people's health and homes and impacted the nation�s economy and environment. Woven throughout the documentary are evocative stills and archival footage, CGI depictions of the storms, and commentary from historians, climatologists, medical doctors, physicists and other experts�as well as remarkable first-person accounts of Dust Bowl survivors who refused to leave the land and lived to tell the tale.

Executive Producer for History� is Susan Werbe. BLACK BLIZZARD is produced for History� by Engel Entertainment. Executive Producer is Steven Engel. Producers are Amy Bucher and Heidi Burke.

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