CHURCHVILLE, VA—The Culbin Sands in Scotland are one of the famed historic storm sites in the world. In 1694, the area was rich farmland, with a manor house and numerous tenant farms amid the fields and orchards. Then a “western hurricane” struck the Firth of Moray, and in two nights the howling storm had buried the houses, orchards, and 14 square miles of fields under 30 feet of sand. The sand is there today, though now covered with Corsican pine trees planted in the 1920s to keep the sand from blowing onto neighboring lands.