While the War on Terror took lives overseas, Mother Nature was wreaking her own havoc here at home.
After a year of stubborn wildfires, destructive hurricanes, and an almost surreal earthquake, Virginia families are reminded of how small and powerless one can feel against Mother Nature’s fury, as she dealt quite a few blows throughout the year.
Hopefuls from border to border sought help from the Almighty in a big way. Or at least salvation. Airplane pilots etched crosses over the Blue Ridge Mountains in far western Virginia, and a faithful follower spent the day etching a powerfully emotional affirmation to “Lord God Almighty” in the sand on the east coast.
Relentless wildfires refused to die in the historic Great Dismal Swamp, surviving even Hurricane Irene. And smoke from nearby Corolla, North Carolina’s wildfires wafted with the wind and added to the danger for motorists and those afflicted with respiratory ailments.
Eighty-one firefighters lost their lives in the line of duty in 2011. Ten of those deaths were attributed to “wildland” fires.
Mother Nature kept her bargain by providing beautiful sunrises over the ocean and sunsets over the mountains, and providing food and ecological balance. But she also dished out a very large portion of wrath in 2011.
On August 23, as Virginians braced for Hurricane Irene, Mother Nature rocked Virginia residents from the mountainous western border of the state to the sandy coastal plain in the east with a M 5.8 earthquake, it’s epicenter located in Louisa, VA. High rise buildings, and the many bridges and tunnels in Hampton Roads were compromised as she shook the earth, and critical inspections had to be immediately performed.
As Virginians were still trying to comprehend that an earthquake had occurred, emergency hurricane preparations and mandatory evacuations were implemented. Only four days later, on August 27 Hurricane Irene arrived, felling trees, tearing at power lines, and flooding streets and waterways. As Irene spent the early morning hours battering North Carolina’s bordering cities and leaving families homeless, her wide bands engulfed Virginia and she continued to rage up the coast creating more havoc in the state. She ultimately was responsible for four deaths in Virginia and billions of dollars of damage.
North of Hampton Roads in historic Williamsburg, she flooded the area and paved the way for Tropical Storm Lee's destruction, arriving in early September. The powerful and deadly duo was responsible for completely uprooting enormous, centuries-old trees, flooding roads, and damaging power lines and guard rails.
Meanwhile, as Hampton Roads began to dig out and inspect the damage, ocean front residents and visitors discovered the beach was littered with hundreds of life forms that were churned up from the deep and ripped from their homes by Irene. Horseshoe Crabs were torn apart and strewn on the shore along with gooey, misshapen, mystery blobs, looking like hundreds of alien life forms.
The beaches of the Atlantic Ocean and the Chesapeake Bay to the amazement of some, astonishment of others, and pure horror of the rest were infiltrated with these blobs. They emitted a stench that even the seagulls and the most zealous and curious Golden Retriever spurned.
Scientists were called upon by fearful residents who had never seen them, and they were subsequently identified as Potato, Skunk, and Fig Sponges, and the city of Virginia Beach promptly whisked the dead creatures away.
Up the coast in Ocean City Maryland, Roman Jesien, PhD with the Maryland Coastal Bays Program also spied the curious blobs on his native shores, and said he and his coworkers have seen a lot of hurricanes but have never before seen these creatures.
Virginians - along with the rest of the country, still talk about the war, nature’s wrath, and the unthinkable gas prices of 2011.
But, at least for now, Mother Nature’s granted us a reprieve with an occasional brilliant  sunset glistening on a thin sheet of ice as Trumpet Swans and Snow Geese migrate to this warmer and safer haven.  And the rest of us find a glimmer of  hope for safe passage through 2012.