Shooting The Breeze

In the summer of 1999, our Editor and Island Free Press Co-Founder Irene Nolan was a busy woman. 1999 was the year of languishing Hurricane Dennis, (the storm that just lazily hung around like a bad houseguest), the devastating Hurricane Floyd, and – of course – the move of the Cape Hatteras Lighthouse. At the [...] Editor's Blog |  Full Article

Controversy exploded on social media this week regarding the proposed construction of a new hotel in Hatteras village. Technically, the issue stemmed from the growing awareness of an upcoming Dare County Planning Board meeting, where the board will consider a text amendment to the C2-H General Commercial Zoning District in Hatteras village. But it grew [...] Editor's Blog |  Full Article

Memorial Day Weekend is just around the corner, and while the unofficial start of the summer season tends to feature stop-and-go traffic on N.C. Highway 12, dizzyingly crowded stores, and back-ups at the island’s ORV ramps, there’s also another annual Memorial Day tradition that’s far more appealing. 2019 marks the eighth year for the annual [...] Editor's Blog |  Full Article

Back in 2016, when the National Park Service was celebrating its 100-year anniversary, our own local Cape Hatteras National Seashore (CHNS) was orchestrating several initiatives to mark the Centennial Celebration, which included taking the initial steps to designate CHNS as an official “International Dark Sky Park,” or IDSP. This designation is made by the International [...] Editor's Blog |  Full Article

The North Carolina General Assembly began their 2019 long session on January 9, and over the course of a month, the 170 members of the two chambers have already considered hundreds of bills. From a bill that would allow teachers to carry firearms and serve as resource officers, to a bill that would designate ice [...] Editor's Blog |  Full Article

There has always been a public fascination with the bridge that spans Oregon Inlet. Hundreds of stories have been written about the new bridge’s construction since the project broke ground on March 8, 2016, and when the county and state celebrated the imminent completion of the replacement bridge via a February “Community Day,” an estimated [...] Editor's Blog |  Full Article

It all started with a brief conversation at the tail end of a recent Dare County Board of Commissioners (BOC) meeting. At the January 7 meeting, commissioner and former Kitty Hawk councilman Ervin Bateman floated the idea of renaming the new Bonner Bridge structure after another prominent county citizen, Marc Basnight. “The name Marc Basnight [...] Editor's Blog |  Full Article

On June 30, 2016, the North Carolina Flood Risk Information System released the first version of new preliminary Flood Insurance Rate Maps (or FIRMs) for Dare County. The FIRMs are updated every 10 years or so, and the last update for the county was in 2006. Traditionally, the process to convert to new FIRMs takes roughly 18-24 months, as a series of procedures must be completed before the new maps can be adopted. This includes a 90-day public comment and appeal period, a subsequent review by FEMA to make changes to the maps as needed, and – eventually – a letter of final determination that cements the maps, and gives Dare County an effective date of implementation approximately six months after the letter is issued. It should be noted that many property owners throughout Dare County have been anticipating the implementation of the new flood maps, and for good reason. When initially introduced to the Dare County Board of Commissioners at a meeting in June of 2016, Steve Garrett of the Flood Plain Mapping Program and Dare County Planning Director Donna Creef both confirmed that many homeowners would benefit from the updated FIRMs. “The good news is that a lot of properties are coming out of the flood zones,” said Creef at the 2016 meeting. Garrett reported at the time that unincorporated Dare County, which includes Hatteras Island, had 1,800 structures in the high-risk VE category, and that number would be reduced to only 124. The county had almost 13,000 structures in the AE zone, and that would come down to about 8,500. The others would move, perhaps into the X zone. Two new zones are also included in the new maps — AH, which applies to the area between the highways that floods in Kitty Hawk, and AO, which applies to some areas that are subject to shallow flooding, and which includes roughly 893 structures countywide. (If you haven’t seen if and how your property is affected, you can still check it out via the thoroughly interactive website found here: https://fris.nc.gov/fris/.) So the ball to adopt the new maps has been rolling for some time, but the process is still ongoing roughly 2.5 years after the maps were introduced. So what’s the hold up, and what’s being done? Here’s a closer look at where we are, and the steps the county is taking to move us forward.

I don’t know about you, but I like to make New Years’ Resolutions that are ridiculously easy to achieve. In previous years, this included resolutions like “Eat more chocolate” or “Vacuum the living room.” By going this route, I can just get my resolution out of the way within hours, while enjoying a vague feeling [...] Editor's Blog |  Full Article