Ranching families across this countryside are now facing an existential threat to a way of life
that has sustained them since homesteading days: years of cleanup and crippling losses after wind-driven wildfires across Kansas, Oklahoma and the Texas panhandle killed seven people and devoured homes, miles of fences and as much as 80 percent of some families’ cattle herds.
“I think he’d be doing himself a favor to come out and visit us.”
Mr. Gardiner voted for Mr. Trump, and said he just wanted to hear a presidential mention of the fires amid Mr.
Trump’s tweets about the rapper Snoop Dogg, the East Coast blizzard and the rudeness of the press corps.
Ranchers said they felt overlooked amid the tumult in Washington,
and were underwhelmed by the response of a new president who had won their support in part by promising to champion America’s “forgotten men and women.”
“This is the country that elected Donald Trump,” said Garth Gardiner, driving a
pickup across the 48,000-acre Angus beef ranch he runs with his two brothers.
Emergency programs run by the federal Department of Agriculture — which is facing 21
percent cuts under Mr. Trump’s budget proposal — will help ranchers, up to a point.
Burying Their Cattle, Ranchers Call Wildfires ‘Our Hurricane Katrina’ -
By JACK HEALYMARCH 20, 2017
Ranchers in Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas are trying to recover after wildfires ravaged their herds and their land.
