Highway 12 Repairs in Ocracoke to be Suspended this Weekend for Blackbeard Festival By JOY CRIST
The North Carolina Department of Transportation (NCDOT) will suspend their repair work on the northern section of N.C. Highway 12 on Ocracoke Island this weekend in order to accommodate traffic and visitors attending the annual Blackbeard’s Pirate Jamboree Festival.
Crews are currently tackling the oceanfront dune line, which washed away in some sections of a roughly 1.5 mile-long stretch of N.C. Highway 12 after Hurricane Florence affected the island in September.
Though both the road and the Hatteras / Ocracoke ferry reopened to the public shortly after the storm on September 21, NCDOT crews and contractor Barnhill Contracting of Rocky Mount are reconstructing the protective dune along the affected stretch of roadway, as well as repairing the stacking lanes on the Ocracoke side of the Hatteras / Ocracoke ferry. All work, including the reestablishment of the stacking lanes, is scheduled to be completed by the end of November.
To accommodate the uptick in traffic due to the festival, road work on N.C. Highway 12 will temporarily stop on Friday, October 26 at noon, and will start again on Monday morning, October 29.
