Dust Storm in Arizona blows in talk of the past

Thirty Three years ago I got married in the backyard of my parents amidst the cactus and palo verde trees.  There was a young one right outside my parents bedroom window where we stood to take pictures.  This now 40+ year old tree was blown over yesterday by the 80 mile an hour winds as they swept through the valley on their way to Phoenix.  The winds blew up quite a dust storm.  They say that it was a mile high and 100 miles wide.  It created quite a havoc in the old Sonoran desert.
I called my dad tonight to see if they had the dust at their house (they didn't...just the winds), and the conversation took him back to his childhood on the prairie in Nebraska during the dustbowl days.  He said he remembers the first dust storm he experienced as a 1st or 2nd grader in a one room school house.  There were only about a dozen students at his little school in the 1930's. As the huge black dust cloud approched the little school, the teacher turned the sandbox upside down and covered the students to keep them safe.