Hurricane Sandy?s brush by the Outer Banks almost a month ago was much less dramatic than Hurricane Irene?s visit in August of last year.
Irene cut two new inlets and did millions of dollars in damage in the northern Hatteras Island villages.
Sandy, by contrast, blew by with high winds, heavy seas, ocean overwash, and soundside flooding.
The storm did do a good job of leveling dunes on Pea Island, piling sand on the road, and tearing up Highway 12, especially at the S-curves and Mirlo Beach in northern Rodanthe.
The North Carolina Department of Transportation had equipment on the highway cleaning up almost immediately and officials said they expected to have the highway repaired and open by Thanksgiving.
And that would have been that ? except for one northeaster that kept the seas high the week after the storm and a second one that?s been hanging around offshore for more than a week now.
DOT has the Bonner Bridge and Highway 12 back in business, except for that S-curves area, where little or no repair work has been done while each high tide has brought more water rushing over the road.
On Saturday, Nov. 10, DOT opened a four-wheel-drive route through the area, which worked fairly well for about four days until the high tide on Tuesday, Nov. 13, closed it down. And it?s been closed for up to three or four hours on each side of the high tide ever since.
Again, this morning started out sunny and bright with only a stiff breeze, but now, in the late afternoon, the low clouds have moved in off the ocean and the wind is picking up again.
And, again, tomorrow the wind is forecast to blow 25 to 30 mph with gusts to 40.
More high seas and ocean overwash are a sure thing. The National Weather Service?s coast flood advisory ended at 7 p.m. last night after a week. Now it?s been reinstated for the period from 7 a.m. tomorrow until 7 a.m. Friday.
It will likely be days after the winds calm down on Friday before DOT even knows what the beach at Mirlo and the S-curves looks like and what the possibilities for rebuilding there are now.
However, it seems clear with the beating we?ve taken from Sandy and northeasters that it?s time for DOT to look down the road, so to speak, and tell us what it intends as a long-term solution for the Mirlo/S-curves dilemma.
DOT has a contract in place to rebuild the Bonner Bridge, the short-bridge parallel to the current one, and has said it plans a permanent bridge over the Pea Island Inlet opened by Hurricane Irene.
But it has held off on saying what the long-term solution at the S-curves is.
Given, the almost 200 comments posted on my blog — ?Guilty by Association?? — in the past 10 days, residents of and visitors to Hatteras and Ocracoke are really focused on this issue.
If DOT and the Federal Highway Administration can prevail in a federal lawsuit to stop the short-bridge option, we will have a new bridge in about three years.
However, we may not be able to rely on Highway 12 to get us to that bridge.
The discussion on the blog has been the best of any that Island Free Press has published. Many different readers are weighing in on options, asking questions, suggesting solutions, and providing a history lesson in inlet formation over the years.
The discussion has been constructive and instructive without much of the sarcasm and personal attacks that folks sometimes resort to when they are anonymous on the Internet. There are still several different anonymous posters ? several posting under the screen name ?Anon? ? but many more have come forward with their names.
I hope this discussion continues on that blog or on this one. This is a good thing for our community.
And I think it?s time that the public pushes DOT to tell us very soon what they can and will do at the S-curves.
This latest highway crisis has apparently led to meetings between DOT and other agencies, especially U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, to discuss options and this is good.
DOT, if you can believe it, now has a Facebook page devoted just to Highway 12.
This is part of what was posted today:
?NCDOT is currently holding meetings and taking part in discussions with partner agencies to determine the most efficient and reliable way to restore traffic to N.C. 12 on Pea Island near Mirlo Beach. NCDOT also is actively partnering with U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to pursue emergency nourishment along this same area.?
Beach nourishment, once ruled out, is perhaps back on the table and is being discussed by both DOT and the Dare County Board of Commissioners.
Meanwhile, DOT said today that the two main options it is considering at the S-curves are:
? Replacing the temporary bridge on Pea Island with a permanent bridge within the existing easement; and
? Building a bridge from Pea Island to Rodanthe. One possibility includes elevating N.C. 12 onto a bridge within the existing easement, which would end just north of the community center and not require beach nourishment. Another option is constructing an approximately 2.5-mile bridge that would extend into the Pamlico Sound and connect back to Rodanthe just north of the Historic District.
Perhaps other options will surface as discussions continue, but DOT owes it to the residents of and visitors to Hatteras and Ocracoke to tell us something soon.
We need a new, safe bridge as soon as possible, but we also need a reliable highway.
I hope the community conversation will continue on this blog and that you will also read the guest column, posted today on the Commentary Page, by Beth Midgett, chairwoman of Dare County?s Citizens? Committee to Replace the Bonner Bridge.
And, finally, here?s a small Thanksgiving gift to all of you who are very weary of the Southern Environmental Law Center telling us how to live our lives on the island.
Click here to see a video of Julie Youngman, SELC attorney, hanging up on Andy Fox, a reporter for WAVY-10 in Norfolk. The interview was last week and Fox was interviewing Youngman about the SELC lawsuit over the bridge and the overwash problems on Highway 12.
Here is the exchange:
?10 On Your Side pressed Youngman to answer whether she will legally challenge efforts putting more sand on the beach.
?Youngman did not answer and after a 12-second pause said, ?You are asking things outside the scope of my agreement to interview with you and the scope of our legal challenge. I am going to hang up now.??
Happy Thanksgiving. Stay warm and dry.
