audio, stills, text and or video: Go to zReportage.com to see more - The sun burned through makeshift curtains, warming the apartment and throwing half-light across what remained in Devin Meurer's life. The dog, the clothing heaped on the couch, the work boots discarded in the corner. The first layoff seemed so long ago. So did the second one. But his boss had called to warn him the company might close. Plunging crude oil prices had spooked investors. ''The contracts kind of blew up. The investors may not put more money in,'' Meurer said. ''He said we may all be looking for a job.'' Crude oil's multiyear boom has turned to bust, catching Meurer and thousands of other workers in a cycle that has played out for generations in Texas. The state could lose 140,000 jobs tied to the oil field this year, a forecast the Dallas branch of the Federal Reserve expects may worsen. Oil has tumbled from $100 per barrel last year to below $50 last week. Economists talk about the supply-demand lesson playing out - how the world market has signaled to the industry it must stop pumping so much oil. Operators speak of technology gains and ''transitioning the company to be successful in a lower oil price environment.'' But in the same way barbed-wire fences and thorn brush hide the workaday tasks of the oil patch, economic models and dry corporate reports don't reveal what's happening in hardscrabble communities - the pawned TVs, fractured relationships and RVs rolling out of South Texas to someplace more hopeful. ''This is my rock bottom right now,'' Meurer said. ''Hopefully, I just don't lose that job.''
© Carolyn Van Houten/SA Express-News/zReportage.com via ZUMA Wire

May 22, 2015 - Hallettsville, Texas, U.S. - Investor HANS HELLAND and HARVEY HOWELL discuss the mud log while standing next to an oil rig. ''We're really like the '49ers but instead of using a shovel we are digging a hole to China. It is an adventure,'' Frank Sitterle, Helland and Harvey's business partner, said.
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Aug 5, 2015 - Fowlerton, Texas, U.S. - Llewellyn Oil Company Supply Store stands permanently closed down.
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Feb. 10, 2015 - Tilden, Texas, U.S. - WILLIAM ''GATOR'' SMITH, 39, of Hallettsville, Texas, left, and BRIAN MASON, 20, of Ganado, Texas, settle down for the night at the Grand Eagle Ford Lodge of Tilden. Smith was an oilfield contractor earning $700 a day but was laid off on Halloween of last year. In order to make ends meet, Smith took a construction job at $5 an hour and his wife went back to work as a pharmacist tech.
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Feb. 10, 2015 - Tilden, Texas, U.S. - A worker uses a cart to get around the grounds of the Grand Eagle Ford Lodge of Tilden. With the drop in the price of oil that lead to lower gasoline prices, activity across the Eagle Ford Shale play has decreased. According to Zam Ali, an owner, the occupancy rate from last year was around 65 to 75-percent at the 85-unit lodge. With the reduction in activity, the lodge is currently running at around 20-percent occupancy. The lodge opened in March of 2013.
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May 5, 2015 - San Antonio, Texas, U.S. - MELISSA RIOS holds her daughter MARLEY RIOS, 5, at her mother's house during an Easter barbecue with Devin Meurer, a former Marine who has gone through three oil field jobs since December 2014. ''We're broke. We had to figure out which car had more gas to get us here because we can't afford to fill the tank,'' Meurer said.
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Feb 19, 2015 - LaGrange, Texas, U.S. - A pump jack stands next to a picnic area outside of LaGrange.
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May 22, 2015 - Hallettsville, Texas, U.S. - HARVEY HOWELL, center, looks at data from the mud log with investor HANS HELLAND, right, in a trailer on a rig site.
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May 5, 2011 - New Braunfels, Texas, U.S. - An oil worker walks pass the manifold (right) and frac pumps (left) at a Chesapeake Energy hydraulic fracturing operation near Carrizo Springs, Texas. Hydraulic fracturing is a method of removing oil and gas from rock formations such as the Eagle Ford shale formation in south central Texas.
© John Davenport/San Antonio Express-News/ZUMAPRESS.com

Feb. 11, 2015 - Carrizos Springs, Texas, U.S. - Traffic tapers off as the day comes to an end in Carrizo Springs. A drop in the price of crude oil from has led to lower prices at the pump for consumers.
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August 5, 2015 - Fowlerton, Texas, U.S. - JOY TIPTON and her son EVAN TIPTON laugh as they joke about how much Evan works at the Tipton family's roadside store, The Little White House. The store is along the highway between Tipton, Texas and Cotulla, Texas, and mainly serves hunters and oil field workers.
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March 23, 2011 - Karnes City, Texas, U.S. - Welding crews are busy laying pipelines such as this one east of Karnes City, Texas in order to get oil and gas extracted from the Eagle Ford shale formation to market. Pipelines are critical because hauling by truck is more expensive.
© John Davenport/San Antonio Express-News/ZUMAPRESS.com

Mar 7, 2015 - Cotulla, Texas, U.S. - BIANCA CHAIRES, 8, holds her family's puppy Brisket as she walks down the road that winds through the Cotulla RV Park. The RV park serves the oil field workers and their companies who want to have a more affordable and home-like living arrangement. She lives in one of the RVs with her family.
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Mar 13, 2015 - Cotulla, Texas, U.S. - The Cotulla Vaqueros watch as BREYON DELTORO, 4, of the Little Vaqueros, races back to the finish line during the goat tagging relay for children six years and under at the LaSalle County Fair and Wild Hog Cookoff.
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Jun 19, 2015 - Cotulla, Texas, U.S. - TRINE TELLEZ, who has two sons who worked in the oil field, sits for a portrait in her bedroom. She said she worried when they would go to work. ''Who would take care of me if something happened to you?'' she would ask. One of her sons, Ysmael ''Smiley'' Tellez who has since left the oil field, lives with her now and helps to take care of her.
© Carolyn Van Houten/SA Express-News/zReportage.com via ZUMA Wire

Aug 6, 2015 - Pleasanton, Texas, U.S. - DEVIN MEURER winces in pain as he lays down in his bed at his apartment. Meurer is facing eviction after getting in a motorcycle accident and losing his third job since December 2014. ''I must have done some bad crap in my past life to deserve all of this,'' he said.
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Feb. 11, 2015 - Carrizos Springs, Texas, U.S. - After the second shift leaves in the late afternoon, SANDY JAIME, 53, cleans up a unit at the Double C Resort near Carrizo Springs. The resort's clients are mostly large oil field companies that rent rooms by volume. A drop in the price of crude oil from has led to lower prices at the pump for consumers.
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Aug 5, 2015 - Cotulla, Texas, U.S. - RONNIE MOORE and BILLY DAVIS eat lunch at JJ's Country Store. They both haul frac sand in the Eagle Ford Shale region. ''Damn near overnight we started making half of what we used to make,'' Moore said. ''All you hear is talk. Nobody knows what is going to happen. I want to retire soon, but my wife doesn't want me home all the time.''
© Carolyn Van Houten/SA Express-News/zReportage.com via ZUMA Wire

Feb. 10, 2015 - Tilden, Texas, U.S. - Keys remain on a keyboard at the Grand Eagle Ford Lodge. With the drop in the price of oil that lead to lower gasoline prices, activity some of the areas of the Eagle Ford Shale play has been affected. According to Zam Ali, one of the owners, the occupancy rate from last year was around 65 to 75-percent at the 85-unit lodge. The lodge opened in March of 2013 and is currently running at around 20-percent occupancy.
© Jerry Lara/SA Express-News/zReportage.com via ZUMA Wire

Apr 5, 2015 - Cotulla, Texas, U.S. - The La Quinta Inn and Suites looms over the backyard as children go on an Easter egg hunt at Jessie Galindo's house. Her husband, father, uncle and other members of her family all work in the oil field. ''Jessie hates having the hotels around her house because now any random stranger can watch her and her kids play in the yard. There is no privacy in this town anymore,'' Galindo's sister JoAnna Gonzalez said. .
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April 4, 2015 - Cotulla, Texas, U.S. - Signs for ''No Oil Field Clothing'' hang in Garcia's Laundry. The oil field clothing can damage the washing machines.
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May 22, 2015 - Hallettsville, Texas, U.S. - Oil field workers stand next to drilling collars on an oil rig.
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May 22, 2015 - Hallettsville, Texas, U.S. - NOLAN SHEEDY goes over data in a trailer on an oil rig site.
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June 19, 2015 - Cotulla, Texas, U.S. - Clockwise from left, ANDREA MARTINEZ, BRIANNA MARTINEZ, ZAYDN MARTINEZ, 4, ALEXA SANCHEZ, 4, KATALEYA STROUD, 2, talk in front of the LaSalle County Courthouse. They all grew up in Cotulla and said that they have seen a lot of change since the oil boom in the Eagle Ford Shale region.
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June 21, 2015 - Cotulla, Texas, U.S. - OSEAS OSIO JR. plays with his nephew IVAN VELA, 7, at Osio's father's home during a Father's Day barbecue. Osio is a math teacher at Cotulla High School who has been renting his house out for the last two years to oil workers, but said he is moving back into the house because of a decrease in demand to rent.
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August 5, 2015 - Cotulla, Texas, U.S. - JOSE GARZA rides his pony Cadete under a billboard advertising oil field supplies.
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August 6, 2015 - Cotulla, Texas, U.S. - Six pumpjacks stand outside of Cotulla, Texas in the Eagle Ford Shale region.
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August 6, 2015 - Cotulla, Texas, U.S. - TINO GAONA prays in his bedroom on the morning of his youngest daughter's 24th birthday, which he is missing. ''I miss a lot of birthdays and holidays, but that is how it goes,'' he said. He prays every morning before going to work in the oil field. Of God, he said, ''He's the reason I am still here, so I pray for everybody on my crew.''
© Carolyn Van Houten/SA Express-News/zReportage.com via ZUMA Wire