Wild video captured a massive dust storm known as a “haboob” that caused car crashes, shut down major highways and left the entire Dallas metro area trapped in an apocalyptic red fog this week.
The eerie footage, taken Monday by Fire Chief Justin Powell of Dexter, NM, showed the aftermath of a five-car pileup caused by drivers apparently blinded by the swirling sands that whipped around emergency workers trying to clear the road.
As the haboob — a particularly fierce type of dust storm caused by thunderstorms — moved through New Mexico and west Texas, the National Weather Service issued severe weather warnings for counties along the southern US border.
The agency warned of wind gusts of up to 80 mph in some areas as officials closed parts of I-10 and I-25 and the visibility around El Paso International Airport dropped to just a quarter mile.
As the dust settled over Dallas-Fort Worth on Tuesday, Fox 4 posted overhead photos of the city center encased in a dirty haze from the haboob, an Arabic term that literally means “to blow.”
“Dust is getting thicker here in tarrant county, I have never seen dust this bad here before,” an area resident posted to X.
X user Rob Bartley posted a photo of a surreal, pink-yellow clouds over a public park, writing, “New Mexico and West Texas sand is coming here. Why? Because I washed my truck on Sunday.”
Haboobs can be miles wide and thousands of feet tall. They are most common in the Southwest, where the winds can pick up loose desert dust and carry it accross the region.
Haboobs are particularly dangerous for people with respiratory conditions and highway drivers, who often have no way to escape the storm by the time they spot it looming on the horizon.
“Blinding, choking dust can quickly reduce visibility, causing accidents that may involve chain collisions, creating massive pileups,” the National Weather Service says.
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