Category Archives: Pamlico Sound

Barrier Island Transformation

I’ve lost track of time since Irene struck and flooded our villages more than six weeks ago.

There’s been a lot of cleaning up, and that should continue into the coming months and throughout the winter.

It’s been an emotional roller coaster, and I’ve been preoccupied with multiple tasks while trying to document life here, as I go. Of course, the newly cut inlet at Pea Island has had my curiosity the entire time.

So on Saturday, I saw the affected areas for the first time with my favorite pilot, Dwight Burrus of Hatteras. He owns and operates Burrus Flying Service, and I highly recommend his expertise in flight as well as his knowledge in local lore and history.

Here is some of what we saw the other day.

Bodie Island spit on the north side of Oregon Inlet has been split in two, while the navigation channel has been scoured to an increased depth.

The west dike at the north pond impoundment of the Pea Island refuge was breached by the storm surge.

Of course, Irene Inlet has been the talk of the town. This is one of the key spots where the pressure of the surge from Pamlico Sound was released.

HIghway 12 looking north towards the wildlife refuge impoundments and Oregon Inlet.

Looking west toward Pamlico Sound. Before the inlet was cut this coastal marsh was a prolific haven for marine life. With the flow of water in and out, it will be interesting to see how it adapts.

A quarter mile to the south of Irene Inlet is New Inlet cut in the storm of 1933. Still visible in the top of the picture are the remnants of the bridge that was never completed, as that inlet naturally filled back in.

My advice is not to buy oceanfront property at Mirlo Beach. It’s a loosing battle, for sure.

Looking north to Pea Island, the Mirlo Beach oceanfront is very unstable. The long, winding road beyond runs through the wildlife refuge.

The NC Ferry System has been the only link to the mainland for several weeks. Next to the ferry terminal on the right side of the picture is the community building that became instrumental in providing for the needy citizens of the Rodanthe, Waves and Salvo.

The National Park Service Day Use Area south of Salvo has become the landfill for all the debris collected since the storm. The Farrow family cemetery, which was damaged by the storm, is at the lower left. The road at the top of the photo is the entrance to ramp 23 beach access.

The debris piles are much larger than most of the houses in the villages.

This afternoon about 6:00 they opened the new temporary bridge, allowing visitors to enter the island once again. There was relatively little fanfare, some media coverage, and I could hear some vehicle occupants cheering as they rolled across the new bridge.

It’s going to be interesting to see how well this works out in time. What will the natural elements throw at highway 12 next….. and when?

Recovery

The post storm recovery has been a unique experience. In many ways, it’s much more stressful than the storm itself. Hurricane Irene feels like it was just last week, pummeling the villages of Rodanthe, Waves and Salvo. The time of day and the day of the week are remote concepts. It is not business as usual. For me personally, I have experienced emotional highs and lows. One moment I see the devastation of my neighbors’ flooded homes, and then next, I’m witnessing people coming together with incredible support.

Right after the storm, I D Midgett was reunited with his grand-daughter, Bryanna. Both of their homes were inundated with sound tide, and are unlivable. Neighbors have opened up their homes to accommodate them, while they rebuild.

The Volunteer Fire Departments have been instrumental in maintaining everyone’s safety. Hours after the storm’s exit, they were out doing things like checking leaking gas tanks, and later, righting headstones in family cemeteries. Here, Tom Murphy and Jim Shimpach discuss recovery with a rescue squad worker.

Tombstones lay flat on the ground at the ravaged cemetery in the Salvo Day Use Area.

Then there are the volunteers from communities to our south. They came in droves offering a tremendous amount of manpower, stripping houses of water damaged materials, furniture, appliances and cleaning up tons of debris. Russell, Mole and Wolfie (above) drove up from Buxton to lend a hand. They were at my house tearing down plywood underpinning and wet insulation. Then they went on helping many others in need, for several days.

The Salvation Army was here almost immediately, bringing in food and supplies so desperately needed. Not only that but they always greeted us with smiles and uplifting spirits.

The North Carolina Baptist Men brought in portable laundromats and hot showers. And with the Salvation Army scaling back, the Baptist Men are preparing our hot meals every day. Yesterday two of them drove up to my neighbor’s house and offered to spray the underside of her floor to kill any mold that had started. Then they came over to treat the underside of my house, and after that to my other neighbor’s house.

All these selfless people are heros in my book. I could go on and on. From the Dare County Health Department giving out tetanus shots, to Tilghman Gray bringing up a load of fresh bluefish and putting on the best fish fry ever.

The vegetation that would normally be green this time of year, has turned a golden brown from harsh salt spray.

The rack line in the marsh behind my house is deep in washed-up debris.

The landfill at the day use area is enormous, and many of the rental homes have not even been dealt with yet.

A pile of lost hopes and dreams continues to grow.

And the battle for the S-Curve continues to be waged.

Building a line of large sand bags is a first line of defense.

Will man ever be able to tame Hatteras Island?

Weather permitting, the sand dike gets higher and higher.

One load gets dumped, and another empty truck runs to Avon for more sand. They must have trucked over 3,000 loads by now.

Meanwhile at Mirlo Beach, the future looks mighty grim.

Irene, the New Benchmark

Despite our well intentioned preparations, hurricane Irene took everyone in our villages by surprise. I knew we were going to have a significant storm surge from the Pamlico Sound, as in storms of the past, but not to the extent that we got. In 2003, Isabel brought in 18 inches of water on my property. Floyd in 1999 was 24 inches. Bonnie in 1998 had 26 inches. The March storm of 1993 flooded with 50 inches of tide, and Irene came in with a whopping 66 inches. According to some of the old timers, the storm of 1944 was a benchmark by which other storms were compared. Flooding back then was apparently somewhere between the March storm and Irene. Hurricane Irene brought in more storm surge from the sound than any storm for the last 75 years. It is now the new benchmark for soundside flooding in our villages on this part of Hatteras Island.

Boarded up, an all too familiar sight.

Pamlico Sound tide blown out upon Irene’s approach.

Tide coming in ahead of the wind shift.

Smoke on the water as the shifted southwest wind picks up, blowing 50 to 60.

During a lull, I ventured to the beach for a shot at the ocean.

It was pure chaos, and I had trouble making it back to the house.

Good thing I wore my chest waders. 3 feet of water had already entered my yard, and I had 5 cats to rescue from the rising water. The barometer had dipped to 964 millibars and in the end dumped 6 feet of sound tide around my house. The water had risen to within a fraction of an inch from coming inside. We were extremely lucky.

I took this screen shot of my computer, using a battery backup, right after the power went off.

The next morning after the storm, the yard was a mess with debris.

The tide had gone right up to my heat pumps, and then some.

This is highway 12 in front of my house after the storm. It was eerily quiet, warm and damp. I would soon find out that many residents did not fare as well as I did. The road down the island had also been washed out.

There were many homes damaged or lost.

And of course, the electricity was cut off.

Also as a result, the cottage Tailwinds eventually fell into the sea.

The road at Mirlo Beach was destroyed.

A leaner at Mirlo Beach.

Highway 12 at the S-Curve.

A new inlet had been cut at the S-Curve, exposing cypress stumps of a forest nearly a thousand years old.

The inlet is actually an outlet caused from the sound rushing into the sea.

Another outlet was carved through North Beach Campground in Rodanthe.

A motor home at North Beach.

Gerald O’Neal surveys the mess at his family-run campground.

The campground’s general store was inundated with sound tide.

Lance Midgett’s house is over 100 years old. This is the first time a tide from Pamlico Sound has gone inside. His cleanup and rebuilding will take a long time.

As residents take on the daunting effort of rebuilding, debris is piling up along highway 12.

Since the day after Irene left, the Salvation Army has been there to help those in need.

They are providing 3 hot meals every day,as well as lifting our spirits.

Now the ferry system is the only way on and off the island.

For days, trucks have been running around the clock to deliver sand from a borrow pit in Avon. NCDOT hopes to fill in the gap at S-Curve cut by the storm surge.

Pallets are moved into place to enable trucks to dump sand for a new roadway. In the meantime, huge swells from Hurricane Katia threaten the shoreline.

Do you think this is really going to work? This is a classic “man against nature” scenario.

Meanwhile the debris continues to pile up along highway 12. This is far from over.

Longhauling

Almost like it was yesterday, I can still see the white longhaul boats on the water of Pamlico Sound. The Pamlico is one of the largest estuaries in the United States, and the longhaulers look for massive schools of fish that inhabit those waters near Rodanthe every Summer.

Nowadays this method of fishing is not as prevalent as it once was, but in 1980, I went out with a crew from Avon. The owners of that haul seine fishing rig were brothers, Collins and Belton Gray. Known as “the Gray boys”, they were dedicated, hard workers. You would not meet finer people anywhere. And they knew how to catch fish.

Dawn shines on Pamlico Sound as the Gray boys look for fish. Belton Gray operates the run boat as Charles Farrow sits in the net skiff.

Charles tends the net, as it begins to go overboard into the water.

Collins Gray steers the run boat using a bridle adjustment tied to the end of the net, as Belton Gray Jr. assists. Meanwhile, more net goes out as the other run boat pulls the net skiff farther away.

With a few thousand yards of net out, Collins watches as it is pulled in a big “U” shape along the shallow bottom. The “U” is then closed and tightened, encircling the fish.

Collins signals that it’s getting time to close the net, begin hauling it back into the skiff, and “bunting up”, putting all the fish in a neat little pocket, before bailing the catch into the boat.

The crew hauls the net back in the skiff.

This had already been a long day and the hard work was just beginning. With most of the net back in the skiff, Belton (center) was ready to bunt up and bail fish. Belton Jr. handles the staff on the end of the net.

Stay tuned for the catch of the day.

Longnet Rigs

One of my most memorable impressions upon moving to Hatteras Island was to see locals earning their living as commercial fishermen. I had never seen anything like it before, and harvesting a bounty from the sea seemed a miracle. In the northern villages where I lived, the focal point of fishing activity was at the harbor in Rodanthe, known as “the creek”.

I used to hang out at the fish houses where the boats came in to pack out their daily catch. It amazed me to see them returning with hundreds of pounds of bluefish, trout, croakers and a myriad of other species.

When the longhaul rigs came in, they had catches in thousands of pounds. Longhauling, also referred to as longnetting, is a haul seine technique utilizing a huge length of net, sometimes a mile long. A longnet rig consists of three boats, two engine powered boats and a net skiff. At times, there would be four or five rigs working out of Rodanthe at the same time.