Local couple has a ball in Washington, D.C.

It was like a senior prom for adults, except that Gail Morrison didn’t know everybody there.

In fact, she hardly knew anyone when she arrived at the Environmental Ball at Washington’s Sequoia Hotel on Tuesday night. As it turned out, though, it didn’t matter.

“Our daughter was a good friend of one of the organizers, and she made sure we met everybody,” said Morrison, who works in public relations for Virginia Episcopal School. “It was a very celebratory atmosphere, very optimistic.”

Of course, just about any incoming president would be a step up from George W. Bush for the environmental crowd. As a product of the Texas oil culture, Bush’s environmental policy seemed to be: “Boys, do what you want, just don’t be too obvious about it.”

Katherine Hamilton, Morrison’s daughter, is president of GridWorks, a Washington-based group trying to get the incoming administration to help sponsor an energy initiative called “SmartGrid.” Yet even though they had a place to stay during the inauguration festivities, Morrison and her husband Frank (a Lynchburg attorney and mediation specialist) drove up to the nation’s capital on Monday with some trepidation. In case a massive traffic jam kept them stranded on Interstate 66 until spring, they were ready.

“We had extra food and water,” Gail Morrison said, “and made sure our cell phone batteries were charged. Then we just breezed right on in on 66.”

Nevertheless, the Morrisons decided not to push their luck on Inauguration Day.

“We didn’t try to go down to the Mall,” said Morrison. “We watched it on TV with our daughter.”

The ball was a formal affair, and Gail Morrison already had a gown.

“I did buy a tiara, though,” she said. “I’ve always wanted one.”

No one really expected Barack and Michelle Obama to show up. Not only were they committed to attending most of the night’s “official” inaugural balls — the Environmental Ball was not in that category — but Al Gore (remember him?) had upstaged the Sequoia Hotel affair by staging a Green Ball on Monday night.

Not to worry. The Environmental Ball was graced by the presence of Steven Chu, and that was star power enough for its organizers. Among the other expected guests were Hollywood celebs Glenn Close and Darryl Hannah and new EPA head Lisa Jackson.

Chu is Barack Obama’s nominee as Secretary of Energy, and he not only showed up at the Environmental Ball, but delivered a short speech.

“I don’t want to typecast anyone as being academic,” said Gail Morrison of Chu, “but he was very serious, and I think he felt a little uncomfortable in a party atmosphere like that. He was quite quiet-spoken and humble, and I think everyone there really liked what he had to say.”

A professor at the University of California at Berkeley and a leading voice for action on the global warming issue, Chu probably hated taking time out for such frivolity while glaciers are melting and polar bears disappearing.

“The path to finding solutions,” he has said, “is to bring together the finest, most passionate minds to work on the problem in a coordinated effort, and to give these researchers the resources commensurate with the challenge.”

And, on the night before the new administration hits the ground running, give them a few drinks and a lively band, the Main Event.

“It was really magical,” said Gail Morrison on Wednesday. “I woke up this morning with the feeling that I had just lived through a revolution.”

Even the dire warnings of the Environmental Ball committee about making it to the Sequoia on Tuesday night proved unfounded.

“We were going to hire a driver,” said Morrison, “but my daughter said, ‘Let’s just drive ourselves.’ And it was no trouble at all.”

The ball started a few minutes late, she added, “because of what happened with Ted Kennedy (a seizure suffered at an earlier luncheon). But that turned out to be all right, too, and he’s already out of the hospital.”

It’s what inaugurations are all about — optimism, excitement and the sense of surfing atop a cresting wave. Reality sets in the day after.