Trends indicate that a major drought event is looming in the not-too-distant future. In as few as three decades we could experience conditions that would make the Dust Bowl of the 1930s seem like an oasis. Efforts to conserve, while admirable and desperately necessary, may already be too late. The episode projects a scenario seventy years into the future in which a twelve-year drought leaves the United States unstable and economically depressed. Western cities are abandoned, states clash for dwindling water supplies and society devolves into a battle for survival.