Residents of coastal Virginia are coming up on the anniversary of two events most would rather not think about—the 80th anniversary of the storm of 1933 and the 10th anniversary of Hurricane Isabel.

The granddaddy of local storms, the benchmark by which other hurricanes in Gloucester and Mathews will always be measured, is the tempest that struck the two counties on Aug. 22-23, 1933. On the afternoon and evening of Tuesday, Aug. 22, a howling gale came out of the east. Winds mounted, and the waters of the Chesapeake Bay, its rivers and creeks rose higher and higher. The resultant damage was terrible. Many families lost all their possessions and, for some of the region’s watermen, their means of making a living.

By early on the morning of Wednesday, Aug. 23, the winds changed direction from northeast to southeast, and a surge of water—a swell approximately 12 feet higher than high tide—reached its crest between 10 and 11 a.m., destroying everything in its w...