Last night, the winds howled. We awoke to find that trees had fallen when velocities reached 66 miles per hour, and that outside Rochester, a woman’s death was attributable to the onslaught. On the opposite coast, the evening news showed children shoveling hail, a few short weeks after devastating wildfires had ravaged nearby swaths of Southern California, killing at least 22 people and destroying at least 3,400 homes. We seemed to be bookended by perils.

How ironic. In the post-9/11 era, when man-made dangers have tossed us about, we have hunkered down to the safety of the cyberworld, where no winds blow. Yet perilous natural events seem to be assaulting us on all fronts—earthquake, fire, hurricane, tornado, floods—with the reminder that Mother Earth is not benign, but an active, tempestuous planet, subject to internal pressure and solar storms. Despite our technological prowess and planning, no one can accurately predict where the next calamity might strike.