Evening star., 1933-08-25
Merely a Reminder.

There is nothing quite as effective as
raging storm in shrinking the ego Of
man and making him aware of his own
futility. Nature dlshed up only few OF
her elements in the hurricane, and ii
was not a bad hurricane as hurricanes
go. But in the course of few hours
the work OF man for years and even
generations was undone on some parts
of the coast, and with splendid and
awesome nonchaiance the wind and
the tides together changed familiar
contours and made things over.
Along the shores of the Chesapeake
which Washington shares, in senti-
mental attachment. at least, with Mary
land. the owners of Summer cottages
received an interesting assortment OF
shocks in the course of their inspection
Of the storms aftermath. Those who
were fortunate enough to find their
houses intact-and these pre- dominated
were in some cases gratified by noting
an addition to their frontage on the
water. and in other cases alarmed by
the discovery that q nights work by
water and wind had stolen away count
less square feet Of earth. valued at
many dollars Per foot.
In some places beaches that men
knew as children vanished overnight,
to beccme hanging bluffs Of g.easy
clay. and in others tine storm solved the
troublesome problem Of what to do
about the bluffs by changing them to
sloping beaches. The community piers.
built by contributions and assessments
Of property owners have in the majority
of cases been lifted and deposited at
great distances along the shore. Farm
ers. looking over their tobacco and corn
fields, have come upon trim yachts lying
in a furrow alongside somebody S
screened back porch.
At Ocean City every visitor In re-
cent years must have been told OF the
project some day to connect by ship
channel just south Of the town the
water of the Atlantic Ocean and Sine
puxent Bay. There was talk OF obtain
ing money from the r. F. c. to do the
necessary dredging. The storm came
along and dredged a channel, wide
and handsome, between the ocean and
the bay. And now the residents OF the
community are planning to seek gov
ernmental aid to erect bulwarks that
will save the channel and keep it where
1t Is.
Those who have travelled Maryland's S
fine highways since the storm cannot
but be impressed by the relative ease
with which shallow, meandering creeks
exerted themselves sufficiently to lift
and carry away apparently immovable
concrete bridges and playfully to under
mine great sections OF concrete road
way. And all in the course of a few
hours.
Another such storm might come next
week. But If nature will stick to some
sort Of law of averages, another like
it will not come within this or the next
generation. BY that time little man
will have earnestly come to regard his
staunch piers. his beaches and his bluffs
and his strong bridges and the harbors
for his boats as safe and permanent,
come what will. Trees will have grown
on land newly made by this storm, and
the lovely peninsulas and graceful in
lets that existed up to last Tuesday
will live only in tradition. And then
another storm will come along and
change things about again to suit the
whims of Mother Nature-and there is
nothing in the world that anybody can
do abOalt II