The Old Oregon Inlet Life-Saving Station is one of the most beautiful historic buildings on the Outer Banks, situated at a dramatic coastal location that would befit a movie setting. But it’s got to go. Where and when and to whom is what the North Carolina Aquariums — the building’s current owner — is trying to figure […]
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Myriad problems led to Rodanthe’s doomed beach houses
December 2, 2022 | Local News | By: Catherine Kozak | From The: Coastal Review
Second in a series. As every nor’easter blows over the Outer Banks this winter, what is top of mind for many is whether another sagging oceanfront house along the Hatteras Island beaches will succumb to the pounding waves of the Atlantic. With a total of three large houses collapsing into the ocean so far this year, […]
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Underwater power lines cause another delay in finalizing Hatteras Ferry Channel realignment
Underwater power lines crossing Hatteras Inlet’s Connector Channel have created another delay in finalizing the realignment of the Hatteras Ferry Channel, also known as the Rollinson Channel. Shortly before Oct. 24, when the Army Corps of Engineers was expected to sign off on the draft Environmental Assessment (EA), the agency decided that it needed more […]
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Outer Banks community pays tribute to writer and fishing advocate Susan West
Susan West, a long-time advocate for the Hatteras Island fishing community and a writer who helped foster improved communications and respect between regulators and fishermen, died last week at age 73. “She made sure that Hatteras and those small fishing communities were never left out of the conversation,” recalled Karen Willis Amspacher, director of the […]
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A cycle of septic repairs, washouts on park service beaches
November 4, 2022 | Local News | By: Catherine Kozak | From The: Coastal Review | 6
First in a series. RODANTHE — Nothing good can be said about septic tanks leaking their foul contents onto a public beach. It sounds even worse that it’s within a national seashore on the Outer Banks renowned for its beautiful, clean beaches. That unfortunate reality illustrates the challenge adapting to rising seas under outmoded policies […]
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Waterways Commission navigates new hurdles to schedule fall dredging in Hatteras Inlet
Absent emergency measures, bureaucratic snares could yet again hinder navigational safety in Hatteras Inlet, leaving members of the Dare County Waterways Commission worried about a lackluster fall fishing season because of poor channel conditions. At its first in-person meeting since the Coronavirus pandemic began in March 2020, held Monday evening at the county Administrative Building […]
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Imperiled beach houses a problem fraught with legal perils
September 14, 2022 | Local News | By: Catherine Kozak | From The: Coastal Review
Big houses falling into the ocean on the Outer Banks earlier this year had many people wondering why the government didn’t do more to proactively get the houses off the beach before they collapsed, with debris spreading for miles. The changing climate has added urgency to already complex balances between private property rights and public […]
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Murphy introduces bill to study plan for Oregon Inlet jetties
August 26, 2022 | Local News | By: Catherine Kozak | From The: Coastal Review | 1
Nearly 20 years ago, the White House Council on Environmental Quality seemed to have finally put its federal sword through the heart of the Oregon Inlet twin-jetty proposal, a project that Congress had approved in 1970 after it had brewed in local committee rooms for at least a decade. But now, as shoaling has continued […]
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U-boat artifacts, divers reveal history of Torpedo Junction
July 11, 2022 | Island Features | By: Catherine Kozak | From The: Coastal Review
As thousands of visitors joyfully play in the surf of Outer Banks’ beaches, a new exhibit at the Graveyard of the Atlantic Museum reminds us that a vicious German U-boat campaign in the early months of World War II had once raged offshore the barrier islands, setting the sea ablaze and filling the air with […]
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Hyde wildfire no longer moving forward, it’s burning down
June 29, 2022 | Local News | By: Catherine Kozak | From The: Coastal Review
Ignited 10 days ago, most likely by lightning, a wildfire burning on private land in rural Hyde County is 24% contained, the North Carolina Forest Service announced Tuesday. But like past wildfires in the region that smoldered for many months, the Ferebee Road fire, as it is known, is deep under the surface, burning down […]
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