The Great American Dust Bowl lasted from 1930 until 1939 and became a "perfect storm" that affected generations of families throughout the mid-west. Suitcase farmers from across the country came to the plains, where land was cheap and wheat was profitable, planting wheat in the fall, leaving the area, and returning only for harvest. When wheat prices fell dramatically to .20 cents per bushel, many never returned, leaving thousands of acres barren. Extensive exposed soil, coupled with drought and poor farming practices, caused an environmental disaster of then-unknown consequences. Dust storms swept through the region from the north into Kansas at 60 miles per hour, and their density was said to have suffocated entire flocks of geese and ducks. Amid low wheat prices and the devastation of the storms, many families who had borrowed money for land and equipment left the region broke and never returned, producing one of the biggest migrations of rural families back to urban areas in the history of the United States of America. During the Great Depression, government programs such as the Works Progress Administration (W.P.A.) helped many families keep their homes. Federal and local governments jointly funded projects including city streets, curbs and gutters, buildings, and schoolhouses to create paid jobs for the unemployed and establish municipal infrastructure. In Burlington, a W.P.A. sewing room provided work for women distributing shipped-in food and sewing garments and mattresses for families with little or no income, and the program especially benefited rural communities and the west.