One's Place in Food Chain Molds Post-Storm Prospects

In Fairfax County, the pump system at historic Colvin Mill was destroyed and will cost $250,000 to replace. Sand traps at the Oak Marr golf course in Oakton were washed out, and entire sections of Fairfax's new cross-county trail floated away.

Fairfax parks manager Ron Pearson said the toll was worse than after Hurricane Isabel. Then, he said, "we had tree damage, but not the type of flooding we saw in this storm. This was countywide. All our parks have been affected."

Arlington County yesterday estimated $3 million in damage to its parks and recreational facilities.

Flooding closed the Takoma Community Center in Northwest Washington, and severe erosion washed out Fort Lincoln trails, said Regina Williams with the D.C. Department of Parks and Recreation.

All week, counties in the region added to the long list of battered recreational facilities and swamped parks that will be shut down until further notice, posting the closures on their Web sites.

Trails, playgrounds, ballfields, campgrounds and nature centers were taken out by the storms across Montgomery and Prince George's counties. Officials said they're still trying to gauge the destruction.

By next week, the region will go from sloshing to slapping as a bumper crop of mosquitoes turns up in time for Fourth of July barbecues, said Jorge Arias, mosquito control chief at Fairfax's health department.

Although the deluge washed plenty of mosquito larvae away, Arias said, eggs laid by daylight-biting tiger mosquitoes, which survive droughts, were "just hanging around waiting for all the artificial containers" -- flowerpots, barbecue grills, the seat of your kid's bicycle -- "to fill up."

"I believe in seven to 10 days, we're going to have a lot of problems," Arias said. High season for West Nile virus coincided with the flood, Arias said, so "if we do get a big surge [in mosquito numbers], things could go badly."