Ocracokers are a tough bunch of people, used to dealing with problems getting on and off their island, which is accessible only by boat or plane.
However, their latest round of ferry woes has got to be trying their patience and challenging their resilience and ingenuity.
Highway 12 finally reopened just before Christmas, making travel off the island easier for residents and visitors who were relying on ferries across the Pamlico Sound, a trip that takes about 2 1/2 hours.
Now Rollinson Channel in Hatteras Inlet is so shoaled up that the Hatteras-Ocracoke ferry is running only sporadically.
Thankfully, it is January, most businesses are closed, and only a few tourists pass through the island or come to stay a while.
The unreliable ferry is, however, causing havoc in the everyday lives of many islanders.
The basketball team struggles to get on and off the island for games and it?s often all but impossible for off-island teams to get there for home games.
Getting off and back on the island for doctors? appointments, shopping, or trips is a daily hassle. Getting prescriptions filled at Beach Pharmacy is Hatteras village is a headache.
Some days the mail truck has to wait and wait on one side or the other or just can?t get there.
Though most businesses are closed, suppliers struggle to deliver goods and services to those that are open.
The clogged channel is also a problem for Hatteras commercial fishermen and charter boat captains who must use Rollinson Channel to get into the ocean.
It?s not a pretty picture, and I suspect some Ocracokers have taken to packing picnics or overnight bags when they must leave.
Most islanders still are cheerful under the circumstances, but they are frustrated with the bureaucracy charged with keeping inlets open and dredging shoaled-up channels.
The North Carolina Department of Transportation Ferry Division personnel are working diligently to keep the ferries running as often as possible, but it?s just not possible to keep to a regular schedule with wind and tides and the shallow channel.
One ferry was aground for about four hours just after Christmas, and the Ferry Division folks prepared and delivered box lunches to the stranded passengers and crew.
The pattern that has emerged during the past several weeks has been that the captains and crews try to run ferries several hours before and after high tide each day. Recently that has meant runs in the morning and again in the evening. Today the ferry stopped running at 10 a.m. and had not resumed yet by late afternoon.
It is not, however, the Ferry Division?s job to keep the channel dredged. That responsibility falls to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
Shoaling in the channel has always been a problem off and on, but the current problems began in earnest after Hurricane Irene in August 2011.
The corps sent the sidecaster dredge Merritt several times to try to keep the inlet clear, but the sidecaster dredges just move the sand around and it was washing right back into the channel.
The agency planned to send the pipeline dredge Richmond to the area in the fall to pipe the sand onto islands in the inlet.
However, before it could get to Hatteras Inlet, Hurricane Sandy, two northeasters in November, and several winter wind storms brought on the current crisis.
Problem is that the corps? contract with the company that owns the vessel was to dredge Silver Lake Harbor in Ocracoke and the ferry channel there before it came to Hatteras Inlet.
Those areas may have needed dredging, but they were not as critical as Rollinson Channel.
Everyone questioned why the dredge went to Ocracoke first and spent several months there, and the Army Corps officials never, in my mind, provided an answer other than ?That?s the way the contract was written.?
The Richmond was scheduled to move from Ocracoke to Hatteras Inlet in mid-October but that never happened. Sandy and other problems intervened.
The dredge finally arrived in Hatteras Inlet in mid-December, but with the holidays and setting up the pipeline, the work got off to a slow start.
The dredge is now working and expects to be at work until March.
One can only hope that the work is finished before the unofficial beginning of the tourist season on Easter, which is March 31.
And one can only hope that by then the Republican-controlled legislature has not slapped a fee on the free ferry between Hatteras and Ocracoke. Lawmakers have mounted efforts to do that for each of the past two years, and they don?t seem ready to give it up yet.
That would be an economic disaster not only for Ocracoke but also for Hatteras. Both islands have already had enough economic woes with hurricanes Irene and Sandy, the damaged highway, and shoaled waterways.
Ocracokers are used to living on an island that can be difficult to access. Many years ago, they rode the mail boat to and from the island. Then came a privately run ferry at Hatteras Inlet and then North Carolina began its statewide ferry system.
Such events as ocean overwash on the highway in storms, fog, and high winds close the ferry down occasionally, but it?s been a long time since the ferry schedule has been this problematic.
Ocracokers deserve better from the state and from the federal government.
FOR MORE INFORMATION
To read a story on how Ocracokers are coping with the current ferry crisis, go to http://islandfreepress.org/2013Archives/01.09.2013-OcracokersStruggleToCopeWithSporadicFerryServiceAtHatterasInlet.html
