Although the federal government doesn’t have a huge visible presence in Gloucester and Mathews counties, some services—and people—are already being affected by the U.S. Government shutdown that began Tuesday.

Locally, there are offices of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the U.S. Natural Resources Conservation Service, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the U.S. Postal Service and the U.S. Coast Guard. On Tuesday, all of the offices except the Coast Guard Station at Milford Haven and USPS were closed, with signs on the doors and telephone messages attributing the closings to a "lapse in appropriations" and the resulting furlough of employees.

Not only that, but other than the Coast Guard, the websites of the agencies, like many other government websites, were generally inaccessible. Some government websites are still available for perusal, but they have messages saying they won’t be updated until the shutdown is over.

The U.S. Postal Service, which r...