After numerous complications with dredging the South Ferry Channel, the Army Corps of Engineers reported to the Dare County Waterways Commission at its Monday meeting that the hopper dredge Murden has finally started work removing the problem shoal. “They’re working daylight operations only,” U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Chief of Floating Plant Joen Petersen told […]
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If the ferries can’t run to and from this southernmost Outer Banks island, the community is isolated, and its tourism economy crashes. It’s a threat that has become all too real. Related: Alternate Ferry Schedule Extended to April 12 Since about mid-March, persistent shoaling in the Bigfoot Slough channel off Silver Lake Harbor has resulted […]
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Dredging in the now-impassable South Ferry Channel in Hatteras Inlet has been making far less progress than expected, leaving members of the Dare County Waterways Commission at Monday’s virtual meeting reacting in stunned silence after a project update. “I wish I had good news to tell you that we busted through the shoal,” U.S. Army […]
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As Oregon Inlet continues to thwart nearly every effort to tame it, North Carolina Congressman Greg Murphy, a Republican from Greenville, is lending his voice to reviving pursuit of twin jetties to prevent sand clogging the inlet’s navigation channel. “What we need to do is we need have the jetties built,” Murphy said at a […]
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Details about a comprehensive proposal laying out numerous options for disposal of dredge material occupied much of Wednesday’s meeting of the Dare County Waterways Commission, indicating that finding somewhere to put excess sand may be as challenging as finding ways to keep it from washing away. In a lengthy slide presentation on the proposed Dare […]
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From beach nourishment to channel dredging to erosion control to material disposal to shoreline preservation, sand management in coastal North Carolina communities is no longer a sporadic chore. It is an engineering challenge, a ballooning expense, a bureaucratic headache, an evolving menace. With rapidly changing coastal dynamics, it is also a necessity and, increasingly, a […]
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By the time Becky Luton opened the doors at 8:30 a.m. Dec. 23, 1999, people had been lined up on the sidewalk for two hours, waiting for her to let them in. Christmas was in two days, but no one was looking to buy gifts. After all, it was a DMV office. Everybody just wanted […]
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Ever since Hurricane Sandy and other 2012 storms reconfigured channels in Hatteras Inlet into lumpy and pinched navigational challenges, members of the Dare County Waterways Commission have spent many a meeting figuratively screaming into the abyss. Securing funds and permits for dredging projects to clear the worsening shoaling had become the bureaucratic version of bumping […]
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As the Cape Hatteras Lighthouse approaches its 150th anniversary guarding the Outer Banks coast, its caretakers are exploring 21st century ways to maintain the tower’s distinctive candy-stripe markings, the first step in preparations for an upcoming comprehensive restoration of the National Historic Landmark. Patches of paint were blasted off the exterior by a dry ice “gun” during […]
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If navigational channels are akin to highways on Ocracoke Island, then dredges are its version of snow plows in the mountains. Both may be subject to whims of wind and weather, but with constant bureaucratic and funding hurdles, an operator can’t just pull a dredge out the garage and start work. Reduction in ferry service […]
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