Farmer says high winds and dry fields contributed to central Illinois dust storm

Farmer says high winds and dry fields contributed to central Illinois dust storm

Photo by Travis Rovey

A central Illinois farmer says a combination of uncontrollable factors caused Monday’s dust storm that resulted in a fatal accident on Interstate 55.

“It was just the wrong timing. Strong winds, low humidity and crusted dry fields.”

Travis Rovey grows corn and soybeans in the area of the accident and tells Brownfield there wasn’t much fieldwork being done.

“Those fields had been planted for at least 10 days so there were very minimal tractors operating in that general area yesterday.”

There have been posts on social media asking if better soil health practices could have made a difference, but Rovey says, “It really didn’t matter what tillage practice it was, we had dust blowing from minimal tilled fields all the way to the conventional fields.

.