For nearly a week, the U.S. Coast Guard was forced to close the Missouri River to traffic to prevent barges and other vessels from inadvertently striking flood gates and levee walls that had already been overtopped with river water.

By the time summer came around, Midwestern flood waters had receded and the height of tornado season had passed, and it was record-breaking drought that became the largest of concerns, particularly for the state of Texas. The Lone Star State had its driest and hottest summer on record and surpassed 100 days of 100 degrees or more. Only making those conditions worse were the wildfires that went from unprecedented to historic proportions.

For as many concerns as wildfires in Texas or the southwestern United States may raise among the public, the June 1 start of hurricane season always generates raised eyebrows, especially along the Gulf Coast and Atlantic seaboard. Predictions for the season by NOAA and other weather forecasters spoke of an “above normal” season with 12 to 18 named tropical storms.

By the time the season ended on Nov. 30, there were 19 named tropical storms that had formed. Fortunately only one of these graduated to hurricane status and made landfall in the United States: Its name was Irene and it will be remembered for some time by every state north of Virginia.

With the hurricane crossing into Virginia on Aug. 28 and headed north, governors, mayors, and even President Barack Obama urged the public in the path of the storm to heed preparation warnings as well as evacuation orders. Having learned the lessons of the leadership failures of “formerly elected” officials in Louisiana during the 2005 Hurricane Katrina debacle, currently elected officials did their utmost to show their proactive nature.

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie went so far as to tell vacationers as well as residents along the Jersey shore who were in the direct path of the storm to “quit working on their tans” and to “get the hell off the beach.”

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg did the unprecedented by ordering the evacuation of citizens from lower-lying sections of the city who were at risk of flooding because of storm surge. He also ordered the complete shutdown of the city’s public transit. Joining him in the shutdown were the five regional airports that serve the Greater New York City area, as well as regional rail traffic and other transportation networks.

While New York City emerged unscathed from Hurricane Irene, the storm’s path across Long Island into New England brought flooding and destruction that had not been encountered in decades. By the time it finally fell apart at the end of August, it had claimed the lives of 55 people and left more than $10 billion in damage in its wake.

For as disruptive as all of these natural events may have been to the American public in 2011, nothing quite moved it as physically or as shockingly as the events of the afternoon of Aug. 23.

Located 40 miles outside the one-time capital of the Confederacy, Mineral, Va., became the epicenter of a 5.8-magnitude earthquake that shook large portions of the East Coast. From South Carolina to Maine, the first significant earthquake to strike the eastern United States in nearly 60 years caused buildings to shake and sway while rattling the nerves of people who were completely unfamiliar with what was happening to the ground beneath them.

For cities like New York and Washington, D.C., which are always on a heightened alert for potential acts of terrorism and other unforeseen surprises, an earthquake was one threat that had not been publicly discussed or warned of. People evacuated buildings of all sizes and flooded into the streets trying to figure what had just happened. While people may have been unnerved, there were no fatalities reported.