'Mother Nature Will Always Have the Last Word'

Hurricane Irene, President Obama said in the days preceding the storm, was shaping up to be a "historic hurricane."

And it was, in some ways. To anyone with a flood-damaged home in Vermont, or stuck on the wrong side of an impassable bridge in the Outer Banks of North Carolina, it's historic. Officials up and down the Eastern Seaboard are still conducting preliminary damage assessments.

In the D.C. region, damage was less-than-historic. After a long day of rain and gusty winds, Irene left thousands without power and hundreds of downed trees, but the capital and the surrounding areas were spared both the dangerous storm surges pushed ahead of the hurricane and the stronger winds on the eastern side of Irene.

"What happened was that we were about 100 miles west of the storm," said Jason Elliot, spokesman for the National Weather Service's forecast office in Sterling, Va. "Even then, we still saw wind gusts of 60 miles per hour at Reagan [National Airport]. From D.C. to the east, they got the brunt of it."

Elliot said the storm traveled "pretty close to where it was predicted to go."

But the problem for the officials making the calls as the storm approaches is that storms aren't always so predictable. An abundance of caution, for officials in Maryland and Virginia, is always preferable.

"It's always possible that it won't weaken like it's predicted to, and even more possible that it will shift. That's where we have to err on the side of caution," said Michael Cline, executive director of the Virginia Department of Emergency Management. A small shift, which might have sent Irene over the Chesapeake Bay, would have meant tremendously different tides and stronger winds, he said.

"Hurricanes don't happen in the blink of an eye,” Maryland Emergency Management Agency spokesman Eddie Hopkins said. "You have time to prepare."

Maryland started the steps to prepare six days before the hurricane hit, Hopkins said.

The mayor of Ocean City ordered a mandatory evacuation of visitors and residents, closing down one of the state's biggest tourist attractions for the weekend. Maryland Comptroller Peter Franchot issued a statement estimating a direct revenue loss of $2 million from the shutdown.

The city got lucky and was spared any heavy destruction.

"If you make that decision and you're wrong, there's an economic impact," Hopkins said. "If you don't make it, there's a potential for enormous damage and loss of life."

Mandatory evacuation orders were issued for 15 localities in Virginia, most in Hampton Roads.

"We issue evacuation orders based on a hurricane plan," Cline said. "It's not a seat-of-your-pants or arbitrary decision. It's all been thought out ahead of time."

Virginia’s hurricane plan is designed by emergency agencies, the Army Corp of Engineers, the U.S. Geological Survey, the Institute of Marine Science, and traffic engineers from VDOT and Federal Highway Administration. The plan takes into account storm surges, geographic features, population, and the strength and path of the storm.

Far from feeling they overreacted, officials say they have to make sure people take the next storm just as seriously as they did Hurricane Irene.

"Mother Nature will always have the last word," Hopkins said. "The challenge is to make sure people don't get complacent. People need to be able to adjust on the fly."