Days of torrential rain ended with minor damage to the District, but on Wednesday Mayor Anthony Williams justified his state of emergency declaration, arguing it’s always best to take the most pessimistic view no matter how the situation looks in hindsight.

“We did it at a time when we were expecting a tropical storm,” the mayor said as he surveyed a small mudslide on Belmont Road Northwest near the Taft Bridge. “We were expecting higher winds. The winds turned out not to be very high. … But you’ve got to go with predictions, and predictions are notoriously relative.”