Phew! It’s been quite the year, huh? In this periodic end-of-the-year series, we look at the people and places that made 2011 what it was. In this installment, it’s Mother Earth.

I’m going to go ahead and sound like an old man here—this past winter certainly wasn’t the winter of 2009-2010, when two massive (and historic) snow storms buried the District, shut down the federal government and made many of us ask, “Who brings a gun to a snowball fight?“

But throughout 2011, Mother Earth made her wrath felt in more dramatic and diverse ways.

On January 26, the outer edge of a blizzard that otherwise pummeled the northeast hit our region, dropping freezing rain, sleet and snow on area roads early on a weekday afternoon. The federal government told everyone to go home two hours early, effectively packing area roadways just as plows should have been clearing them of ice and snow that had started to accumulate.

What followed was a traffic jam of pretty epic proportions, even for our standards. There were reports of motorists stuck on freeways for five, six—up to 13 hours. The next day, the federal government opened two hours late, angering workers that were still smarting from being stuck on the road all night.

So bad was the experience that the federal government’s Office of Personnel Management recently rolled out a new policy for inclement weather, including the staggering of departures and an option to have workers shelter-in-place. They say you learn most from your mistakes, and the federal government certainly learned a lot from Trafficpocalypse ’11.

On August 23, we experienced an earthquake. The area has seen its fair share of shakers and temblors over the years, but this one was strong enough that it sent panicked office workers fleeing into the streets. (Admit it—many of us thought it was a bombing at first.)

While both the National Cathedral and Washington Monument suffered damage—some of the most memorable images in the quake’s wake was of inspectors rappelling down the side of monument to assess damage—what was worse was that a decade after the attacks of September 11, 2001, it seemed that we are still somewhat unprepared for an emergency.

And then, not a week later, we were hit by Hurricane Irene, the first such storm to so closely brush the District since 2003’s Hurricane Isabel. While plenty of people lost power, 267 tons of tree debris ended up on the streets and the dedication of the Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial had to be postponed, we still emerged somewhat unscathed, at least relative to other parts of the East Coast.

Oh yeah, and we had those torrential rainstorms in September. And a really, really hot July.

So, an open plea to 2012: Please try not to mimic your preceding year. Davy DCist would not be pleased.