In Virginia, double punch by quake, Irene

MINERAL, Va. -- Staring out at her shell-shocked congregation Sunday, the Rev. Marian Windel felt the need to reassure her flock that God was not "mad at us in any way."

"For us, this past week has been trying, at the least," the Episcopal minister said, her clear voice echoing off the high-pitched ceiling of the Church of the Incarnation, Mineral's oldest house of worship. "There was little, if anything, that we could have done to prepare for the earthquake. And who would have thought it would be followed by a hurricane?"

This little town of about 400 was the epicenter of a magnitude 5.8 earthquake Tuesday that rattled the East Coast, causing cracks in the Washington Monument and awakening the region to disasters considered to be a West Coast plague.

As Hurricane Irene approached the Virginia coast, its eye drifting farther westward with each passing day, some in this old mining town northwest of Richmond feared the winds would finish the work the temblor had started.

"We were pretty much like, 'What did WE do to Mother Nature to come through here like this?' " Louisa County Fire Lt. Floyd Richard said as he stared at the darkening sky Saturday.

Whatever that might have been, Mother Nature must have decided that Mineral had suffered enough.

Mineral received a good soaking and some gusty winds, but Irene's fury stayed far east of the town. Richardson said they had higher gusts during a 1,000-acre brush fire in February.

The people of Mineral didn't even lose power in the storm. "After it's all done and over, we're very fortunate," Mayor Pam Harlowe said.

The town, which produced and shipped nearly half the nation's supply of iron pyrite in the late 1800s, couldn't have stood much of a hit. Along Mineral Avenue, the main street, scars from the quake were everywhere.