Under the combined effects of storms, development, and sea-level rise, portions of this narrow, 200-mile island chain called the northern Outer Banks are collapsing. We’re losing them right now…it’s going to awful.” So says Stanley Riggs, a geologist at East Carolina University in Greenville.
What's at stake for locals is not just summer fun but a way of life and an entire economy that is now based on tourism. This is especially obvious on Hatteras Island (historically, Croatoan Island). Separated from Bodie Island by the Oregon Inlet to the north, the island runs generally north-south before bending to the west at Cape Hatteras and ending at its southern point at Hatteras Inlet. The island is home to the towns of Rodanthe, Waves, Salvo, Avon, Buxton, Frisco, and Hatteras.
In an area of Hatteras Island between Avon and Buxton, the beach has receded about 2,500 feet in the past 150 years, roughly 75% of its then original width. In Buxton and Rodanthe, houses and hotels once solidly on land stand on spindly stilts in the surf or have succumbed to relentless wave action.
State Highway 12, the only road to Hatteras Island, repeatedly has buckled and washed out during storms. "Portions of the Outer Banks, particularly Hatteras Island, are in big, big trouble right now," says Rob Young, director of a shoreline research program at Duke and Western Carolina University in Cullowhee. "That barrier island is falling apart."
Maintaining Route 12 is a near-constant battle against the elements. Now, instead of continuing the battle, the state has decided to move the road. Route 12 is leaving the island and being rerouted via a jug-handle-shaped sound side causeway OVER the Pamlico Sound and rejoining the highway at a more “stable” location in Rodanthe at a cost in excess of $150 million.
A similar thinking, resettlement, saved, for now, the Hatteras Light at Cape Hatteras. When completed in 1870, the Cape Hatteras Light and Station were located roughly 1,500 feet from the ocean. Over the next 100 years, storm-driven tides, often covering Hatteras Island, eroded sand from the ocean side of the island and deposited it on the sound side. By 1970, this gradual westward migration of Hatteras Island left the lighthouse just 120 feet from the ocean’s edge. As the ocean continued to creep closer, various attempts to "stabilize" the coast included beach replenishment and the construction of several hard engineered groins north of the lighthouse. A severe storm in 1980 accentuated the island's westward movement washing away the foundation of the first lighthouse, which had been one mile from the shoreline when constructed in 1803! In 1999, the second Cape Hatteras Light and Station, which consists of seven historic structures, was successfully relocated 2,900 feet from the spot on which it had stood since 1870.
That being said, to learn more about life in Emerald Isle, NC, along the Southern Outer Banks, go to my website, www.EIHomesforSale.com and request my free Guide to Living Were You Vacation or text your email address to: 919-308-2292. Stay well and stay safe.
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