Planet Earth: Africa: "Sahara"

This is a part of the new Planet Earth series:
I thought it was interesting how a sand storm can be 1500 kilometers long (932 plus) miles long and wipe out whole villages and many many tents and camel trains with people never seen or heard from again. It is the largest Desert on earth.

If you have ever been in a real sandstorm it can be terrifying. The worst one I was personally in I was only 6 years old and it was in Death Valley, California. We had driven all day to get to Death Valley and it was my whole Dad's Electrical Crew, about 6 men, mostly family men seeing Death Valley for the first time. We drove into the sand storm because none of the men had been in one before. That was a mistake because the blowing sand completely took off the paint off the car and this would have been when I was 6 years old 1954 and I think the car was a black and white Chevrolet. It also permanently pitted the windshields and windows of the car. We moved along at about 1 mile per hour because going outside would take all the skin off your face and arms because the winds were 50 to 80 miles per hour. We drove for hours this way until we found a canyon to get out of the sand storm. It was almost day break before we were in the canyon and out of the storm so none of us slept that night and though I was a little scared I was with men and couldn't let them down and show them I was scared because after all boys were supposed to be like men then in 1954. Any boy over 4 was expected not to cry no matter what back then especially if you were around all men like I was.