the future of the Carolina Outer Banks

Subject: the future of the Carolina Outer Banks
From: Jack Campin
Date: 02 Jul 14 - 08:06 PM

Dunno if this is exactly BS or not. Given the importance of some of the folklore collected from this area I'd have expected someone to notice this:

Highway 12

Subject: RE: the future of the Carolina Outer Banks
From: Janie
Date: 02 Jul 14 - 09:27 PM

Really does belong below the line. Lots of folklore originating there, but no more than in many other places.

Yeh. North Carolina is going backwards at an alarming rate. In 2012 our ultraconservative legislature passed a law imposing a 4 year moratorium on any state rules, policies or regulations based on expected changes in sea level.

This is just a microcosm of what is happening around the country, especially in coastal areas, and probably in coastal areas around the developed world.

While the sea rises, science treads water

Subject: RE: the future of the Carolina Outer Banks
From: bbc
Date: 02 Jul 14 - 09:36 PM

Having made the trek from New York, a year ago in June for the annual Ocrafolk Festival on Ocracoke Island (Outer Banks), sponsored by the wonderful local group, Molasses Creek, I find this very troubling. Ocracoke, regularly, has dune sand blowing across the one road, the length of the island. It is a special habitat that I'd hate to be lost & Molasses Creek is a wonderful group!

best,

bbc

Subject: RE: the future of the Carolina Outer Banks
From: Rapparee
Date: 02 Jul 14 - 09:50 PM

And believe it or don't Georgia is increasing in land mass. That is, the US Georgia.

It's due to a variety of things, including the continental shelf. To put it simply, stuff washed over the continental shelf centuries ago is being returned by tidal action and the eddying of the Gulf Stream. The stuff washes up against the barrier islands and adds to the islands on their north and south ends.

This doesn't happen in NC because the continental shelf and the Gulf Stream are closer to the land mass.

You'll have to take my word for this or look at a map with a good hydrologist. Yes, I just learned this last evening.

Subject: RE: the future of the Carolina Outer Banks
From: Janie
Date: 03 Jul 14 - 01:01 AM

Any barrier island is a highly mobile piece of land. Denying that is pure folly. Even without man-made global warming. Nature wins in the end. Politics, money, ignorance, and/or wishful thinking (alone or in any combination) can deny reality, but can't change it.

Subject: RE: the future of the Carolina Outer Banks
From: Jack the Sailor
Date: 03 Jul 14 - 01:13 AM

We are subsidizing the insurance for people lining on the beach. I don't like that.

Subject: RE: the future of the Carolina Outer Banks
From: Joe Offer
Date: 03 Jul 14 - 01:18 AM

I visited the wonderful lighthouses of the Outer Banks about 15 years ago, and fell in love with the area - especially with Ocracoke Island. I didn't have time to explore Hatteras Island because I had to catch a ferry, but what I saw, I liked very much. The northern chain of islands were a little too developed for my taste, but I did consider investing in a very nice, new summer home there. There was a hurricane the next year - I wonder how my summer home would have fared in the storm.

But Ocracoke was just delightful. I was studying maps as I ate dinner in the old hotel, and two different people came up and said, "You can't get there from here." They were right, since the last ferry had left for the day, and all I could do was stay at Ocracoke and enjoy one of the most beautiful sunsets I have ever seen.

Oh, and they have a cute little lighthouse, not like all the formal, powerful-looking tall ones that line the rest of the Outer Banks.

I have to say that the recent legislation coming from the North Carolina legislature has me a bit worried, though.

-Joe-

Subject: RE: the future of the Carolina Outer Banks
From: Mr Red
Date: 03 Jul 14 - 04:03 AM

We have coastal erosion along our eastern shores. Even Whitby (home of a week long Folk Festival) with its cliffs is no immune from it. Where the river Humber joins the sea there is a spit of sand called Spurn Head. It moves around over the years. I liken it (on the timescale appropriate) to the fluttering of a flag in the breeze. It flaps, on a timescale of 100's of years.

If irt were possible, we should shove the skeptics fingers further in their ears. Then they would notice.

Subject: RE: the future of the Carolina Outer Banks
From: Musket
Date: 03 Jul 14 - 05:36 AM

I was out walking at Spurn Point only the other day. Some of the information boards make interesting reading....

Subject: RE: the future of the Carolina Outer Banks
From: bbc
Date: 03 Jul 14 - 08:06 AM

It was fun to read that you like Ocracoke, too, Joe! And I recall your affection for lighthouses. Duane & I ended up there, following the group, Molasses Creek, who we had, first, heard in Albany, NY. They're fabulous!

Barbara

Subject: RE: the future of the Carolina Outer Banks
From: Stu
Date: 03 Jul 14 - 10:25 AM

We were in North Carolina at a conference in 2011, and tacked on a few days before the meeting to see some of the country. We had a choice between the Appalachians and the coast and chose the Smoky Mountains in the end, mainly because I love the music and had to see the land it came from . . . plus the forests . . . bought a mandolin from the Carolina Mountains guy . . . happy days.

I always wondered about the coast though as I'd love to see an alligator (I'd love to see a bear or mountain lion too, no luck yet though). Looks like I'd better get there quick.

Subject: RE: the future of the Carolina Outer Banks
From: pdq
Date: 03 Jul 14 - 11:10 AM

It is often assumed that all barrier islands are temporary.

They have a formation period, a mature period, then they begin a dissolution period. Not sure where Ocracoke is now in that evolution.

Blaming this natural process on the boogy man of Global Warming is a pathetic reach. Pure politics. Scientists need not apply.

Subject: RE: the future of the Carolina Outer Banks
From: GUEST,Janie
Date: 03 Jul 14 - 11:51 AM

JtS, I see Arthur is strengthening and may track a bit west now and Wilmington may take a side swipe. Keep your hatches battened down, and y'all stay safe.

Subject: RE: the future of the Carolina Outer Banks
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 03 Jul 14 - 11:55 AM

At the moment the hurricane offshore is worry-some.
Dissolution seems inevitable if the sea level rises. Not much politicians can do about it. The barriers should exist in some form for a number of years yet, as predicted sea level rise increments will take time to effectively wipe them out, or rebuild them further 'inshore'.

Subject: RE: the future of the Carolina Outer Banks
From: Jack the Sailor
Date: 03 Jul 14 - 01:16 PM

Yeah Janie, Finished puttin away the flower pots and plastic furniture an hour a go. Gonna make a grocery run in a few hours. We are only expecting a Cat one and we are on the west side of the storm track. Our house is built to withstand much worse.

Stu, you are not going to see any gators on the outer banks unless they are pets. There are no swamps or bodies of fresh water. We have them in the creeks around here but in 8 years we have only seen one once and there have been a handful of published sightings in town. Though the 15 footer crossing the Carolina Beach Highway about 7-8 years ago made quite a splash in the media.

Joe the light houses are beautiful. The Hatteras light house is iconic.

Subject: RE: the future of the Carolina Outer Banks
From: Jack the Sailor
Date: 03 Jul 14 - 01:27 PM

pdq. If the storms get worse and sea level rises 40 inches, trouble. It is as simple as that. They have had storms and had to rebuild nearly everything, including highway 12 several times over the period those islands have been settled. You know that more heat means bigger storms. The summer/fall temperature of that part of the Atlantic is rising. What part of this do you fail to understand?

Subject: RE: the future of the Carolina Outer Banks
From: Jack the Sailor
Date: 03 Jul 14 - 01:31 PM

Looks like we will be on the west side of a cat 2 storm now. Still not a lot to worry about but I'm knocking on wood and crossing my fingers. :-)

Subject: RE: the future of the Carolina Outer Banks
From: pdq
Date: 03 Jul 14 - 01:49 PM

I could give some more facts about the formation and dissolution of barrier islands, but that can wait until after the hurricane has past.

Good luck and be safe to all those in the path.

Subject: RE: the future of the Carolina Outer Banks
From: Jack the Sailor
Date: 03 Jul 14 - 04:41 PM

OK so most recent forecast is 40-50 miles an hour winds. There is a warning about weakened trees due to the winter ice storm. There are intermittent tornadoes but that is over a 5 county area. The odds of here are tiny. I just put my grill and my chiminea in the shed and turned over the rocking chairs. We have had a small power outage. Fingers are crossed and we are waiting.

Subject: RE: the future of the Carolina Outer Banks
From: Joe Offer
Date: 03 Jul 14 - 05:01 PM

As many of you know, lighthouses are a passion for me, and my November 1997 visit to the Outer Banks lighthouses was one of the most memorable trips of my life. There are five lighthouses on the Outer Banks, and each one is a gem.

The Outer Banks begin in Virginia just south of Virginia Beach at the entrance to Chesapeake Bay. I was tempted to visit the Great Dismal Swamp on my way to the Outer Banks, but that will have to wait for another visit. The islands of the Outer Banks are connected by bridges, so one can drive a long way without having to take a ferryboat. The islands are long and narrow, and one can often see water on both sides of the highway. The ocean is rough and treacherous to the east, and the sound to the west is often smooth as glass. It's a great place for watching waterfowl. The Outer Banks are the closest that World War II got to the east coast of the U.S. German submarines found U.S. merchant ships to be easy prey off the outer banks, and residents often saw burning ships off shore during the first two years of the war. The proximity to the shore helped save the lives of many merchant mariners. There are still a few shipwrecks to be seen along the shore, but the ones I saw were so deteriorated or so completely buried in sand, that they weren't very impressive to see.

Currituck Beach Light, the northernmost, is made of unpainted red brick, with an attached keeper's house. There's a lot of stuff growing around the lighthouse - it would be a jungle if it weren't cut back occasionally. There are sand dunes to the east of the light. To the west, there's a footbridge over to a marshy island; and then there's Currituck Sound to the west, with the mainland beyond. At the entrance to the footbridge, there's a sign that says something like, "DANGER! Beware of poisonous snakes." I did walk across that bridge and along the marsh trail for a bit, but I watched every step very carefully.

From Currituck, it's a 45-minute drive southeast along the island shore to the Wright Brothers Memorial at Kitty Hawk - interesting, but not enthralling. Another 30 minutes southeast is Bodie Island Lighthouse, a beautiful lighthouse with horizontal black-and-white stripes, in a particularly isolated and beautiful setting. It's one of the most perfectly beautiful lighthouses I have ever seen.

It takes another hour of driving, still going southeast, to get to the Cape Hatteras Lighthouse, the tallest lighthouse in the U.S. When I saw Hatteras in 1997, it was in its original location, and its foundation was threatened by eroding seashore. There was a pond near the lighthouse, and I got a great photo of the tower reflected in the pond. The lighthouse was moved half a mile to a new location in 1999.

I didn't have much time at Hatteras because I had to race to get the ferry to Ocracoke Island. My plan was to take a quick photo of the Ocracoke Lighthouse and catch the last ferry to the mainland. Alas, I missed the ferry and was stuck on this little island 70 miles from the mainland. There was one old hotel on the island, and I booked a beautifully-furnished, antique room. Then I went off to find the lighthouse. It was short, squat, and cute, unlike the four other Outer Banks lights that are tall and stately. I learned that Ocracoke was the favorite anchorage of Edward Teach, the infamous pirate known as Blackbeard. Oh, and I saw one of the most beautiful sunsets I've ever seen - there's not many places in the U.S. where you can see a good sunset over the Atlantic Ocean, but you can do it from Ocracoke. I got one of the best photographs I've ever taken - (click).

I had a wonderful dinner and a good sleep, and then took the ferry to the mainland. I was surprised at the size of the ferryboat. It really was a substantial craft. It was a long way to the mainland, and the sea was fairly rough. I was glad to be in a big boat.

Subject: RE: the future of the Carolina Outer Banks
From: Joe Offer
Date: 03 Jul 14 - 05:42 PM

There's one more lighthouse that I think of as being on the Outer Banks, although it's a long ways away from the others and is often not included on the list of Outer Banks Lights - and you can't get there by car. I drove to the beautiful town of Beaufort, NC (BOW-fert - with that first syllable pronounced like "bow and arrows"). From there, I got a ride on a little motorboat to Cape Lookout National Seashore. From the boat landing, it was a half-mile or so to walk to the lighthouse - there were no motor vehicles in the area, which made the area even more scenic. There were wild horses, though. Cape Lookout Light is decorated with a distinctive black-and-white diamond pattern. Once you've seen this lighthouse, there's no chance you'd forget it. Remembering the snake sign at Currituck, I was very careful on my walk to the lighthouse - not that I've ever had a dangerous encounter with a snake.

Except for Ocracoke, the lighthouses on the Outer Banks are almost identical. All are tall and beautiful, and all were built in the 1870s and 1880s. I grew up in Wisconsin near the Wind Point Lighthouse on Lake Michigan. The Wind Point Light looks very much the same, and was built at about the same time.

South of Cape Lookout is the fair-sized city of Wilmington, an interesting town that is home to the battleship U.S.S. North Carolina. And south of Wilmington is Camp Lejeune, where my dad served during World War II as an instructor and later commander of the Marine Corps jeep mechanics school.

I made this trip in November 1997 to go to Florida to celebrate my parents' 50th wedding anniversary. Their honeymoon was on the Blue Ridge Parkway and Great Smoky Mountains National Park, and I imagine I was conceived there since I born in August, 1948. I had planned to drive the Blue Ridge Parkway, but it was closed by ice and snow and I only got to see parts of it. I gave up and drove to the coast to see the Outer Banks, and that turned out to be an unexpected pleasure. And since this trip was connected to my parents' wedding anniversary, it was nice to see where they honeymooned, and where my dad was stationed while he was a Marine.

So, I hope this wonderful area survives the storm. Hurricanes are a part of life on the Outer Banks, so I expect this one won't change much. I suppose if it weren't for the hurricanes, the entire chain of barrier islands would be covered with condominiums.

-Joe-

Subject: RE: the future of the Carolina Outer Banks
From: GUEST
Date: 03 Jul 14 - 05:57 PM

Thought thsi was about the hurricane currently battering that part of NC - makes me feel a little more hopeful that our trip there later in the summer will not be interrupted by a hurricane, they've "had" theirs, I hope...

Subject: RE: the future of the Carolina Outer Banks
From: Jack the Sailor
Date: 03 Jul 14 - 07:21 PM

Here in Wilminton, things are windy and wet but not too bad. Camp Lejeune is next to Jacksonville, NC, about 60 miles up US 17 to our northeast. I think the storm will pass closer to them. But I don't think it will be much worse than here. Beaufort, 45 miles due east of Lejeune, will probably get a good pounding.

Subject: RE: the future of the Carolina Outer Banks
From: Janie
Date: 03 Jul 14 - 09:54 PM

The fight, PDQ, is about basing policies, regulations, and the commitment of tax dollars on the science that predicts even more movement of the islands, or their disappearance sooner rather than later due to sea rise and stronger storms, vs. the General Assembly forbidding agencies from using current science to make projections and predictions to use to make rather short term rational policy and regulatory decisions regarding development, restoration, when and if to repair or reroute roads that get torn out storm, after storm, after storm? I am an advocate of shared responsibility to one another as human beings, but I am not an advocate of throwing tax dollars down a rabbit hole once it is clear that is what the situation is.

Maintaining or restoring access that can accommodate a few hundred or even a few thousand people is doable and worth the cost. Maintaining or restoring access that can accommodate 35,000 people, mostly tourists has a very high price tag, and not one I think it makes sense to keep paying. I would have this opinion even without the pretty clear science around the increased and/or excelleration of natural processes from the impact of global warming. n I already thought we were throwing bad money after bad, but now I am being forced to throw it even faster.

Subject: RE: the future of the Carolina Outer Banks
From: Janie
Date: 03 Jul 14 - 10:01 PM

Any hurricane or tropical storm is a big deal with real threats, but sounds like this ain't gonna be too bad for you folks who live there and are prepared. Mebbe a lot of pissed off tourists on the Outer Banks themselves who didn't opt for the insurance protection for cancellations due to weather related events and mandatory evacuations.

Oh well.

Subject: RE: the future of the Carolina Outer Banks
From: Jack the Sailor
Date: 03 Jul 14 - 10:38 PM

An interview with a hotel manager there said that most were checking out only one day early. But of course this way they miss the 4th at the beach.

Subject: RE: the future of the Carolina Outer Banks
From: Jack the Sailor
Date: 03 Jul 14 - 10:58 PM

The wind is less. The rain is not as strong. The storm is at Beaufort so it has missed us. No damage, no problems other than micro power outages. Thank God.

Subject: RE: the future of the Carolina Outer Banks
From: bbc
Date: 03 Jul 14 - 11:16 PM

Great posts, Joe! Duane & I did make it to Great Dismal, as well as having dinner with Bob Zentz. We stayed at Pam's Pelican B&B. Lovely times! The Ocrafolk Fest was a lot of fun!

Barbara