In a coordinated effort among the three counties of the Outer Banks, the area will reopen to visitors on Saturday, May 16. When the rental homes, hotels and motels do reopen, it may appear to be business as usual. But for the people who work in the hospitality business, it will be anything but. “This […]
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On Saturday, March 14, Gov. Roy Cooper ordered all North Carolina schools to close. Classes would continue, but instruction would be entirely online. Two days later, the nonprofit Outer Banks Community Foundation rolled out the first of its COVID-19 Rapid Response Grants, which it awards in times of crisis. The $4,500 grant awarded to the Dare Education Foundation helped […]
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In April, Dr. Anthony Fauci, a key member of the national COVID-19 task force, called out shaking hands as a particularly dangerous custom that should be relegated to the past. “ I don’t think we should ever shake hands ever again, to be honest with you,” he said in a Wall Street Journal podcast. “Not only […]
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OBX teachers, students, parents adjust to online learning For the second time in North Carolina history, our schools are closed from Kill Devil Hills to Asheville. In 1918, schools were shuttered from two to four weeks trying to stop the spread of the Spanish Flu, the deadliest pandemic the world has ever seen. On March […]
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The damage from Hurricane Dorian is still there on Ocracoke. It’s improving, homes are being rebuilt, businesses reopening and slowly but surely, the village is recovering. “The Island is getting better all the time,” Ocracoke resident and owner of Ocean Atlantic Rentals Greg Honeycutt said. “I hate to use the word normal, but we’ll come […]
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A project the size of the “jug-handle” bridge north of Rodanthe is like some intricate dance routine carried out with mammoth custom-built gantry cranes, massive 155-foot pilings and teams of workers each with their own tasks. “The whole system is one big train. You only move as fast as your slowest part of the train,” […]
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Hurricane Irene made landfall near Cape Lookout Aug. 27, 2011. As the storm tracked across eastern North Carolina, the waters of Pamlico Sound first drained to the south and west, flooding the coastal mainland. When the winds shifted, a 6-foot-high wall of water crashed onto the dunes of Pea Island, flowing across the sand toward […]
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Federal and state money to help Ocracoke and Hatteras recover from Hurricane Dorian has been slow getting here, but one Outer Banks nonprofit has been moving far more quickly than any government agency to provide relief where it can. Jeff Byard, the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s associate administrator for the Office of Response and Recovery, […]
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Marcy Brenner’s piano had seen a lot in 111 years, but never anything like the aftermath of Hurricane Dorian on Ocracoke. The storm surge that Dorian drove into Ocracoke was like none that had been seen before. Wind, waves and storm combined to create an 8- to 9-foot mini-tsunami that pushed flood waters into the […]
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We’re waiting at the Wright Brothers Airport for our SouthWings pilot, Stu Bailey, who’s flying down from Norfolk, Virginia. SouthWings, based in Asheville with satellite offices in New Orleans, Louisiana, and Annapolis, Maryland, is a nonprofit organization that provides flights over environmentally sensitive areas. They don’t charge for their flights and the pilots volunteer their […]
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