The week in review
Most disaster prone: The 5.8 magnitude Cuckoo quake August 23, followed four days later by Hurricane Irene, causes the governor to raise the inevitable question: When does the swarm of locusts arrive?
Most damaged: Two Louisa schools– Louisa County High School and Thomas Jefferson Elementary– will be closed for the school year and may be beyond repair. The Fauquier Juvenile and Domestic Relations Court in the John Marshall Building in Warrenton is closed because of quake damage and moving into lease office space. Culpeper loses a 19th-century building on Main Street.
Most powerless: Dominion Virginia Power estimates 800,000 Virginians are without electricity early August 28 and says for some, it could be one to two weeks before it's restored.
Worst accident: Allison L. Buck, 18, of Palmyra, is ejected from her car in a single-vehicle crash on Route 53 around 10pm August 25 and dies at the scene.
Latest Blue Ridge Parkway casualties: The body of Harvey Mars, 70, from Fishersville, is found in his car August 28 down a 40-foot embankment near Humpback Rocks, WINA reports. Mars had been missing since August 24. And the body of a 39-year-old woman who died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound is discovered August 29 at the Rockfish Valley overlook at milepost 1.5, according to the News Leader. Reports say she was Lisa Michelle Harrison, the former Robert E. Lee High School bookkeeper charged a few days earlier with embezzlement.
Latest move for Colette Blount: The unsuccessful City Council candidate files for reelection to the Charlottesville School Board, WINA reports. Seven candidates want one of the four open seats: Guian McKee, Steven Latimer, Jennifer McKeever, Wilma Neale, Amy Laufer, and Ivana Kadija.
Biggest move: Martha Jefferson Hospital, undeterred by hurricane warnings, pushes forward with its August 28 move to new digs on Pantops.
First birth: Alex Irwin arrives on the scene less than two hours after the hospital completes its monve, NBC29 reports.
Latest perv hoping to hook up with a 13-year-old online: Shakir A. Moore, 24, of Richmond, is sentenced to five years in Louisa August 29 for soliciting undercover cops pretending to be a girl on Craigslist, according to a release. Moore showed up to his date with candy and condoms.
Worst breakfast gone awry: A kitchen fire melts the microwave and burns cabinets around 11am August 27 at 701 Shamrock Avenue, but is extinquished with baking soda by a quick-thinking resident, according to Charlottesville Fire Chief Charles Werner. A can of what appears to be La Costena beans on the counter seems unscathed.
Worst blaze on Ridge Street: A fire Sunday afternoon briefly closes the street but is subdued quickly with minor damage to an apartment.
Worst stint of fires: Fumes from an overturned gas can in the basement of a home on 2022 Hessian Road ignite when they reach the water heater's pilot light, creating a flash fire with minimal damage on August 29.
Best false alarm: Reports Friday night of flames coming out of the door of an apartment at Lambeth Commons turn out to be some unauthorized on-balcony grilling.
Best dousing amidst destruction: Hurricane Irene reduced the Great Dismal Swamp fire that's been burning since August 4, Tidewater television stations report.
Best review: UVA art prof Kevin Everson gets a glowing notice from the New York Times for his Whitney Museum show, "More Than That: Films by Kevin Jerome Everson.”
Best college town: Southern Living picks Charlottesville because of its “rolling vineyards, the Blue Ridge Mountains, the redbrick Downtown Mall..."
Best satire of UVA in The Onion: "Study: 96 percent of humans would rather be animatronic bear" cites a survey of 196 countries in a 320-report in which the vast majority of humankind would prefer to exist as a robot bear in a life that's always a jamboree and the workday is brief.
Least felicitious choice of party venue? The no-kill Charlottesville Albemarle SPCA hosts its October 29 Critter Ball at Slaughter Hall