What can we do about NC 12? 

The famed highway, depicted in “Living at the Water’s Edge: A Heritage Guide to the Outer Banks Byway” by Barbara Garrity-Blake and Karen Willis Amspacher, is the lifeline to those living on the upper Outer Banks.

Since early December, the Outer Banks has been hit several times with major storms, causing severe overwash on NC 12 and disrupting ferry service. Some of these storms, but certainly not all, are well out to sea and not noticeable here. But the swells they create can be extremely damaging.

Although one has to accept that these events happen and it is one of the challenges for living here, it seems that there have been more disruptive storms than usual. So, yes. We are sounding the alarm that the Outer Banks will continue to get more severe storms, causing the residents to develop more and more contingency plans. We don’t need to tell you what scientists believe to be the cause.

For the first time in decades, Ocracoke had a fatal vehicle accident — on Feb. 13 at the north end of NC12. The ocean had breached the sandbag area following a storm with high winds, flooding the road on the way to the Hatteras Inlet ferry terminal that contributed to the accident.

We hope to never see such a tragic accident repeated but the question remains: Can anything be done about the water crashing over NC12 in this vulnerable area causing folks heading to the ferry to drive more than a mile through water on the road, especially around high tide?

Do Ocracoke Islanders just have to live with it?
It’s a head scratcher and any proposed solution would be a big-ticket item.

Last year, the NC12 Task Force that was formed to develop a long-term transportation plan, deemed there were seven hotspots that needed to be addressed. Ocracoke made the top priority list along with what is known as the Canal Zone, which is at the base of the south side Basnight Bridge on Pea Island.

If the Canal Zone is blocked, no one will be able to get on or off Hatteras Island, Dave Hallac, superintendent of the Cape Hatteras National Seashore and who is a member of the Task Force, said in an interview.

NC 12 on Ocracoke is also a high priority because if that is blocked, the only access to Ocracoke is the Cedar Island and Swan Quarter ferries, which have limited daily runs.

The multiple storms toppled the high dunes put in place by the NC Department of Transportation (NC DOT), leaving only sandbags to keep the water from spilling onto the highway.

The huge pile of dredge spoil at the north end of the island has been depleted, Hallac said, and the material that remains is not suitable for beach renourishment.

“The sand has to be beach quality,” he said. “That’s N.C. law.”

NPS is going through the contract process to get a sand delivery to the island to fill in South Point Road.

So, for now, there are just sandbags,” Hallac said. “When the ocean comes up really high what you expect to have is a washover event and that means the entire island gets washed over and sand gets deposited on the backside, and that’s how a healthy barrier island maintains itself.

This is the natural migration of sand westward on barrier islands such as Ocracoke, Hallac said, noting that there really aren’t dunes.

Hallac said that when he became superintendent in 2015, there were about 500 feet of sandbags bracing the north end of Ocracoke. “Now there are 7,000 feet of sandbags,” he said. 

As for replacing the sandbags, NC Ferry Division Spokesman Tim Hass said in an email that this is in the works.

“We’ve gotten authorization to award an emergency contract for sandbag replacement on Ocracoke,” Hass said.

Are there any quick, affordable solutions?
Could the road be moved farther west away from the ocean? Probably not.

“In most of these areas, as soon as you go to the west about 50 feet, you hit wetlands and water,” Hallac said. “If DOT wanted to consider moving the road, they could propose that to us, and we would certainly evaluate the proposal. But I haven’t heard of them saying that they think that that’s an appropriate investment.”

The Park Service has proposed moving South Dock to south of the pony pens, which would cut off a huge chunk of the island to anyone who would want to check out the beaches on that end. That project was submitted to the State Transportation Improvement Plan (STIP), but with a price tag of about $87 million, it has not yet been acted upon.

The STIP program is NCDOT’s 10-year transportation plan, which is updated every two years. It prioritizes transportation projects according to region and each region gets an allocation from which to fund them.

Many islanders cry out for a bridge to Hatteras. Is that even a possibility? And what would even a small bridge of a few miles cost? An engineer would have to calculate that, but Randal Mathews, Ocracoke’s county commissioner, noted that the cost of building bridges is upwards of $75 million a mile.

“There is no standard ‘cost per mile’ on bridges,” Hass noted. “Yes, Rodanthe was roughly $74 million per mile, but every bridge is different, depending on where and how it’s built. Some are less, but some can be upwards of $100 million per mile.”

During the Feb. 12 & 13 wind event every low-lying area from Oregon Inlet Down to Hatteras Village was flooded, Hallac said. “If all these seven hotspots need bridges that would run billions of dollars.”

Islander Stevie Wilson has suggested creating a ferry route to the Outfall Canal area of Hyde County. This area is a little north of its current terminus at Swan Quarter but would probably be a shorter ferry ride than the two- and three-quarter hours it takes currently to traverse the Pamlico Sound to Swan Quarter.

One islander worried that if the road buckles from the water that it won’t be repaired, but Hass disagreed.

“I can also tell you that NCDOT has NOT adopted a policy to abandon NC12 on Ocracoke if there’s pavement damage,” Hass said.

But are we hitting the tipping point at that stretch where there’s essentially no beach left?

“You can dump truckloads and truckloads of sand and if you put it too high, the sand is going to come into the roads,” Hallac said. “So, you can’t (make them too high). And if you put it too much over towards the ocean, as soon as the tide comes up in the next six hours, it’s going to wash away.”

What about South Dock?
Compounding the overwash is the erosion of the ferry stacking lanes at the South Dock terminal, which has been an issue for several years.

With the destruction of these lanes, motorists leaving the island line up along the two-lane highway. In season, this line can extend for a mile or more and could be another accident waiting to happen if someone with priority loading wants to get into that lane and has to drive in the oncoming traffic lane.

Catherine Peele, a planning developer with the NC Ferry Division, said in a recent Ocracoke Waterways Commission meeting that the Ferry Division received money for improving safety for stacking and the NCDOT Highway Division is working out a schedule for that.

“With South Dock, you have three challenges,” Hallac said. “First you have a perpetual dredging challenge, just to get the boat to the dock. After the Dare County Waterways Commission meetings, Michael Flynn (one of the members) sends me the notes and it’s like deja vu all over again at every meeting: Who’s going to dredge it? When are they going to dredge it? Where’s the money?”

Mathews is frustrated over the lack of solutions to NC12 on Ocracoke as well as the continued problems with shoaling and lack of dredging in the Hatteras Inlet.

He said he and others have mulled closing the road during weather events that cause ocean overwash at the north end at high tides. Overwash during the night is especially dangerous, added Hyde County Sheriff Captain Joe Smith.

But closing the road would impede deliveries to the island as well as islanders’ needing to go up the beach. Would everyone be OK that?

Hallac said that officials are “taking a conservative approach to road closures.  I think NCDOT is always just trying to balance allowing that traffic to flow and also trying to protect public safety and it’s a tough one.”

NC12 is a Scenic Byway and from Whalebone Junction in Dare County to Ocracoke. It is dense with buildings and infrastructure. It’s the only route to the major tourist destinations on Pea, Hatteras and Ocracoke islands, producing millions of revenue for the state.

The NCDOT overall budget is $5 billion, and according to Gov. Roy Cooper’s office, the new revenue forecast projects a $3.25 billion surplus.

Isn’t there any money anywhere that can fund solutions for the NC12 hotspots as well as dredging Hatteras Inlet?