It all goes back to the spring of 2011. Katrina Huffstutler and her family knew early on it would be a rough summer when it reached 105 degrees on Mother’s Day.


Still a newlywed and new to living in my husband


Brandon’s hometown of Electra, situated halfway between Wichita Falls and Vernon on Highway 287, it was pretty frightening to have my workday interrupted by a knock on the door from the sheriff. Evacuation was in order. Although Brandon works only 3 miles from the


house and normally would have arrived at the door before the sheriff, he was fl ying home from a confer- ence in Alabama at the time. Being the good wife that I am, I attempted to leave in his truck, which was only a year old and much more valuable than my 2007 Tahoe. Unfortunately, his extra set of keys was nowhere to be found. So instead, I packed up the 3 most important things I could think of into my car: my Doberman pin- scher, Deuce; the tower to Brandon’s desktop computer; and my work laptop. I made a quick getaway across town, where Deuce


and I took shelter at my brother- and sister-in-law’s home until the coast was clear and the fi re extinguished. Fortunately, the fi re was put out before it reached


our home or any others. But as a record-breaking heatwave, coupled with


record-low humidity levels, settled over Wichita County and surrounding counties that summer, there were


66 The Cattleman May 2015


more and more fi res. Until, at some point, the land was too burned-up to catch fi re. Simultaneously, the lakes began to dry up, as they


tend to do when there’s a lot of heat and no rain. People started speculating about what would happen if the area ran out of water completely; but droughts don’t last forever — right? By the following summer, the nation’s drought news


was centered on the Corn Belt. After all, many parts of Texas had received spring rains and were at least somewhat on the road to recovery.


The fi ve stages of drought


Stage 1: Drought Watch Stage 2: Drought Warning Stage 3: Drought Emergency Stage 4: Drought Disaster Stage 5: Drought Catastrophe


thecattlemanmagazine.com


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40  |  Page 41  |  Page 42  |  Page 43  |  Page 44  |  Page 45  |  Page 46  |  Page 47  |  Page 48  |  Page 49  |  Page 50  |  Page 51  |  Page 52  |  Page 53  |  Page 54  |  Page 55  |  Page 56  |  Page 57  |  Page 58  |  Page 59  |  Page 60  |  Page 61  |  Page 62  |  Page 63  |  Page 64  |  Page 65  |  Page 66  |  Page 67  |  Page 68  |  Page 69  |  Page 70  |  Page 71  |  Page 72  |  Page 73  |  Page 74  |  Page 75  |  Page 76  |  Page 77  |  Page 78  |  Page 79  |  Page 80  |  Page 81  |  Page 82  |  Page 83  |  Page 84  |  Page 85  |  Page 86  |  Page 87  |  Page 88  |  Page 89  |  Page 90  |  Page 91  |  Page 92  |  Page 93  |  Page 94  |  Page 95  |  Page 96  |  Page 97  |  Page 98  |  Page 99  |  Page 100