Year in Review

An oil spill that threatened to eclipse even the Exxon Valdez disaster spread out of control with a faint sheen washing ashore along the Gulf Coast Thursday night as fishermen rushed to scoop up shrimp and crews spread floating barriers around marshes.The spill was bigger than imagined — five times more than first estimated — and closer. Faint fingers of oily sheen were reaching the Mississippi River delta, lapping the Louisiana shoreline in long, thin lines.

A major earthquake struck southern Haiti on Tuesday, knocking down buildings and power lines and inflicting what its ambassador to the United States called a catastrophe for the Western Hemisphere's poorest nation. Several eyewitnesses reported heavy damage and bodies in the streets of the capital, Port-au-Prince, where concrete-block homes line steep hillsides. There was no estimate of the dead and wounded Tuesday evening, but the U.S. State Department has been told to expect "serious loss of life," department spokesman P.J. Crowley told reporters in Washington.

The good news was all about things that didn't happen: No floodwaters pushing aside hastily built sandbag walls, no neighborhoods evacuated, no panicked residents wondering if they'd ever see their homes again. The Red River crested in Fargo on Sunday without doing major damage, and city officials all but declared victory. bA year after record flooding forced thousands in the area to evacuate and damaged about 100 homes, officials and residents used a host of lessons learned to prepare for this year's less intense — but still potentially destructive — rush of water.