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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Ocracoke Island has long been famous for its charming cottages with front porches and flowers in tiny yards, tucked alongside narrow, tree-shaded roads winding through the village. But there’s nothing charming about being slammed with 7 feet of flood water. In the wake of the devastation in September 2019 from Hurricane Dorian, Hyde County is […]
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It’s deja vu all over again for Hatteras Inlet’s South Ferry Channel, much to the chagrin of the Dare County Waterways Commission. With a recent survey of the channel posted online during Monday’s remote meeting, Commission Chairman Steve “Creature” Coulter pointed to the red blotch – indicating shallow water – on the west end of […]
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This is the fifth installment in a continuing series on climate change and the North Carolina coast that is part of the Pulitzer Center’s nationwide Connected Coastlines reporting initiative. Twenty-seven years ago, an interagency panel of bureaucrats, politicians and scientists gathered for the first time in Atlanta, Georgia, to study how to save a North Carolina coastal […]
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Thwarted for months by a series of snags, including the shutdown caused by COVID-19, dredging of the clogged South Ferry Channel could start as soon as week’s end, members of the Dare County Waterways Commission learned at its first-ever Google Meet held Monday evening. “We’re all learning,” Chairman Steve “Creature” Coulter said in a later […]
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If there is anything to conclude from the recent spate of natural disasters and the coronavirus crisis, it is that data powers action, whether responsive or proactive. Data can illustrate the past, reflect the present and predict the future. And as Northeastern North Carolina has seen all too clearly, flooding will be much more a […]
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