The Ocracoke Interfaith Relief & Recovery Team will hold a public meeting at 6 p.m. Tuesday, April 20, to discuss the progress of home rebuilding and recovery on the island from flooding by Hurricane Dorian on Sept. 6, 2019.
The meeting will be held on Facebook livestream on (OIRRT) Facebook page.
Questions for the group can be emailed by 5 p.m. April 19 to Alicia Peel, administrative assistant, at apeel@oirrt.org.
The N.C. Department of Transportation’s Ferry Division resumed modified service on Pamlico Sound between Cedar Island, Swan Quarter and Ocracoke today.
Service will begin with a two-boat, alternate schedule while the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers continues to dredge in Bigfoot Slough.
The schedule for April 13 to 16, weather permitting, is as follows:
The Army Corps of Engineers’ Dredge Murden and Dredge Merritt will continue working in the Bigfoot Slough channel throughout the week to clear the shoaling, but dredging operations are dependent on weather and tides.
Once the dredging work is complete and water depths and channel widths return to acceptable levels, the Ferry Division will resume its regular, three-boat schedule on both routes.
For up-to-the-minute information on schedule changes on the Cedar Island and Swan Quarter routes, please follow @NCFerryPamSound on Twitter.
Tuesday, April 13
Ocracoke Health Center will hold a COVID-19 vaccine clinic for its patients and will offer vaccinations from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. or until vaccines run out. Those residents who aren’t patients may register on the spot.
Ocracoke Occupancy Tax Board will meet at 6 p.m. in the Community Center but the meeting will only be available online to the general public via the Hyde County Public Information Facebook page. The live stream will begin when the meeting is called to order. You do not need to be a Facebook member to view the live stream but can access our Facebook page by going to the following website https://www.facebook.com/HydeCounty.
Saturday, April 17
Ocracoke Waterfowl Festival, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. at the Berkley Barn grounds. See story here.
Correction: The Ocracoke Waterways Commission will meet at 5:30 p.m. on Tuesday, April 20. The story is corrected below and updated as modified ferry service resumed today (April 13).
By Connie Leinbach
After several days of plugging away at the shoaling in Big Foot Slough, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has initiated a tag-team approach with two dredges.
The ACE on Friday received approval for the emergency operation of dredging to the immediate west of the federal channel through which both the Cedar Island and Swan Quarter ferries traverse to get to and from Ocracoke.
The severe shoaling in Big Foot Slough just outside Ocracoke forced the suspension on April 7 of the Pamlico Sound ferries. Resumption of these ferry runs began Tuesday (April 13).
Since these are under federal control (rather than state), the ACE is tasked with conducting the dredging. Shoaling occurs when sand and sediment fill into a ferry channel making water depths too shallow and the channel too narrow for safe operation of the ferry system’s vessels.
Both the side caster dredge Merritt and the hopper dredge Murden are working in the slough and also at the north end of Ocracoke in the South Ferry channel, but at different times.
This channel, which used to be near the old “short route,” benefits commercial and recreational fishing boats and the Coast Guard on their way out into the ocean, Dare County Project Manager Brent Johnson said.
The Murden is working in South Ferry Channel and the Merritt is working in Big Foot until Wednesday, said Jan Peterson, dredge manager. That night, the Murden will come back to Ocracoke and dredging will be a 24/7 event with the Merritt in the slough during the day and the Murden working there overnight.
Dredging is done to both widen and deepen these channels, said Todd Horton, chief of waterways management.
“The Merritt is better at widening the channel and the Murden is better for deepening channels,” noted Peterson. “We’re hitting it with everything we got.”
On Friday, the ACE received emergency approval to dredge outside the federally authorized area. (See notice at end.)
As seen on the graphic above, the straight line of hash marks is the current federal channel, and it is blocked by a huge amount of sand, shown in shades of red. In that red area, the water depth is about three feet and ferries need at least 10 feet of water.
But a new line of hash marks, labeled on the graphic as an alternate channel, is shown going around this red area.
That is the area where the ACE has received approval to dredge, Horton said, and that area has eight feet of water. The emergency order is seeking to dredge to 10 feet with possibly two feet more.
As for width, the minimum width for ferries to be able to pass safely is 100 feet, Horton said. Right now, the channel is only 85 feet wide, he said, and they will try to get it to 150 feet.
Big Foot is a federal channel, but a deeper, natural channel to the west, called Nine Foot, would possibly better serve Ocracoke.
But that channel would have to receive federal designation, which takes an Act of Congress.
The Merritt last dredged Big Foot in October, thanks in part to a cash gift from Carteret County.
This year, the ACE has more than $1 million to dredge Big Foot thanks to a higher budget for the ACE, which was mentioned in the December Ocracoke Waterways Commission meeting, and an additional half million thanks to U.S. Rep. Greg Murphy.
A Waterways Commission meeting is scheduled for 5:30 p.m. Tuesday, April 20, virtually on Facebook on the Hyde County Public Information page.
From our news sources
Whether you live or farm within the Lake Mattamuskeet watershed, or visit the lake because you love to fish, hunt, or enjoy viewing waterfowl and wildlife, you can learn and ask questions about the latest actions to restore the lake from the comfort of your home during a virtual public meeting from 6:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. April 15.
Hosted by the N.C. Coastal Federation, the meeting will cover the work underway with the Lake Mattamuskeet Watershed Restoration Plan to restore the lake’s water quality and reduce flooding throughout the watershed.
Staff from U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the N.C. Wildlife Resources Commission will provide updates about ongoing monitoring within the lake and review the details of a carp removal project.
Engineers from Geosyntec Consultants and Coastal Protection Engineering will review the results of a watershed-scale model that was developed to better understand where and how much water currently moves through the watershed based on various rainfall amounts and changes in sea level.
Additionally, the professional consultants will provide an overview of the engineering alternatives that are currently being evaluated. Undergraduate engineering students from East Carolina University will also present conceptual plans for three projects within the watershed that could potentially reduce flooding issues and improve water quality within the lake.
To register and to view the meeting agenda, please visit nccoast.org/LMWRPVirtualMeeting. The meeting can be viewed from any computer via Zoom by registering in advance.
Those with limited internet access may make reservations to view the meeting at the Hyde County Government Services building by contacting Daniel Brinn at dbrinn@hydecountync.gov or 252- 926-7253.
Capacity is limited due to social distancing requirements and will be provided to those who register in advance.
To view the approved watershed restoration plan and materials from past public meetings, visit www.nccoast.org/lakemattamuskeet.
Interested community members and stakeholders can also sign up for future email updates and leave comments via this project webpage. Contact Michael Flynn with any questions at michaelf@nccoast.org or 252-473-1607.
The North Carolina Coastal Federation, a nonprofit membership organization, works to keep the coast of North Carolina a great place to live, work and play through a variety of programs and partnerships.
To learn more, visit nccoast.org, or call 252-393-8185.
Reprinted by permission from the Island Free Press
April 8, 2021
By James D. Charlet
April 14, 2021, marks the day that the world’s largest manmade, moving object began its titanic futile struggle to survive 109 years ago, only days after its birth.
More newspaper accounts, magazine articles, books, radio and TV talk shows, documentaries, and motion pictures have been made about the Royal Mail Ship (RMS) Titanic sinking than any other maritime disaster in our history. In spite of that massive amount of coverage, there remains a dark, little-known connection to Hatteras, hundreds of miles away. The physical evidence remains there today.
The complete story is the subject of Chapter 18 in my book, Shipwrecks of the Outer Banks: Dramatic Rescues and Fantastic Wrecks in the Graveyard of the Atlantic, which is available through Globe Pequot Press (imprint of Rowman & Littlefield), as well as through international booksellers, such as Amazon.
By now, it is clear that the answer to the sinking of this “unsinkable” leviathan is not the simplistic one-word answer of “iceberg.” No, it was a complex cauldron of more than fire and ice; it also involved a perfect storm of fatally flawed human misjudgments.
In 1870, the United States Weather Bureau, (now the National Weather Service), was established solely as a strategic information source for the U.S. military, and was thus placed under the Secretary of War Department, now the Defense Department. Several weather stations were built in key locations, and one of the first was in an area widely infamous for stormy weather: Cape Hatteras, North Carolina.
Working late into the night of Sunday, April 14, 1912, station operators Richard Dailey and Horace Gaskins received an urgent telegram message at 11:25 p.m. This time, 12:25 a.m. Hatteras time, is an extremely important clue to this mystery.
The message contained the words “CQD: Have Struck Iceberg.” It was from the RMS Titanic. Dailey and Gaskins immediately forwarded the message to their headquarters, the New York Station. It was received by 21-year-old David Sarnoff, (the future president of the Radio Corporation of America.) Like everyone else at the time, Sarnoff “knew” that the Titanic was unsinkable, so he severely chastised the senders, thinking it was a hoax. In his response, he said that the senders were troublemakers who were just “clogging up the lines,” and that they were to refrain from any further communications.
Here we encounter one of the most popular misconceptions of all time. Though many people now believe that “CDQ” stands for “Come Quickly, Distress,” it was actually a message of “Security, Distress”
French was the International Language of the time. The term “CQ” was originally the English-speaking telegraph operators shorthand of the French word, “seću,” pronounced “see-cue” meaning “security.” This was to precede a secure, important safety message; it was an alert, “stations, listen up!” The “D” was added by Marconi stations in 1904 to indicate “Distress.” As always, when things don’t make sense, we make up stories to help them make sense. Unfortunately, CQD never meant “Come Quickly, Distress.”
The text of the telegram received at Hatteras reads: Received Hatteras Station at 11:25 p.m. TITANIC calling C.Q.D. giving reading 41.44 about 380 miles SSE of Cape Race. At 11:35 p.m. TITANIC gives corrected position as 41.46 N 50.14W. A matter of five or six miles difference. He says “have struck iceberg.”
Tragically, the error is compounded. There was a second chance. The steamship RMS Carpathia was the nearest ship to Titanic’s reported position, being only 67 miles away. They had received distress messages from the Titanic. In Hatteras Village, weather bureau operators Dailey and Gaskins also received this telegraph traffic. Due to their previous reprimand, they did not forward this second message to the New York office.
The Hatteras receipt of this telegram message was probably the earliest of anywhere, because of the time that we typically hear that the Titanic hit the iceberg, which was at 11:40 p.m.
Notice in the famous James Cameron blockbuster movie that the clock does focus on 11:40. The Hatteras Weather Bureau reports receiving the message at 11:25 p.m., and Titanic’s first distress message was recorded as 12:15 a.m., her time, which was an hour earlier due to time zones. A corrected message from the Titanic was sent at 12:25 a.m., and that would be 11:25 p.m., Hatteras time, an exact match.
Had that distress call been acted upon at 12:25 a.m. Titanic time, there would have been another two hours and 40 minutes before she sank, which may have been plenty of time to rescue the over 1,500 souls who perished. It took almost exactly two hours for the world’s greatest ship, on her maiden voyage, to sink at 2:20 a.m. (her time) the next day, Sunday, April 15.
The telegram incident lay in fallow for almost 100 years. The 1901 Hatteras Weather Station was decommissioned in 1946 and finally vacated in 1995. Fortunately, restoration work was started in 2001 and finished in 2005. In the course of the restoration in 2005, workers were removing old newspapers and crumpled documents from the walls which had been used as insulation.
One piece of that paper was an old, crumpled fade telegram, dated April 14, 1912.
The actual evidence – the original 1912 telegram received at the Hatteras Weather Bureau – still exists, and is on public display in the Graveyard of the Atlantic Museum.
The Hyde County Health Department on Friday said that COVID-19 cases are on the rise again with 18 active cases as of Friday, up from zero cases at the end of March.
Along with the active cases, Hyde County Health Director Luana Gibbs, in a press release, noted that Hyde has logged 636 recovered cases, eight deaths and a total case count of 662.
The bulk of our total count (number of cases from the beginning of the pandemic through today) are people between the ages of 25-49 (40%); male (61%); white (57%); and have not been hospitalized (74%).
For specific information, such as zip code locations of cases and demographics, please visit NC Division of Health and Human Services website at https://covid19.ncdhhs.gov/dashboard, which breaks down information by county.
The site gives data by number of cases, cases per 10,000 and 100,000 residents and other useful information.
“Hyde County’s posted numbers will usually differ from the state website, as we give numbers that are the most current and the state has some lag time,” Gibbs said. “You can access the number of vaccinations at this website as well.”
According to the website, Hyde County has 2,220 people partially vaccinated, or 44.6%, and 1,513 fully vaccinated, or 30.6%.
As noted in the past, the way to overcome this pandemic is by communities globally doing their part, Gibbs said.
“It is imperative that we obtain the COVID-19 vaccine AND continue to follow the 3Ws guidelines,” she said. “To protect one another, we must practice the 3Ws and get our COVID-19 shots.
The Ocracoke Health and Engelhard Medical centers will hold mass vaccination clinics for their patients aged 18 and older on Tuesday (April 13).
Ocracoke will offer vaccinations from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. or until vaccines run out and Engelhard will offer vaccinations from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. or until vaccines run out. These vaccines will be on a first-come, first-served basis.
Those patients who can’t make the clinic can schedule appointments at the Hyde Health Department, 252-926-4474, or the Ocracoke Health Center at 252-489-3622.
For 24/7, on-call services, call the Coronavirus Hotline 1-866-462-3821.
The N.C. Department of Transportation is seeking volunteers to help clean up trash along roads during the Adopt-A-Highway Spring Litter Sweep for two weeks starting Saturday (April 10) to April 24.
Each April and September, NCDOT asks volunteers to help remove litter from roadsides. Volunteers are provided with clean-up supplies, such as trash bags, gloves and safety vests, from local NCDOT county maintenance yard offices.
Volunteers on Ocracoke will be on their own during this two-week effort, but Keith Gaskins, the Ocracoke NCDOT supervisor, said he will have orange NCDOT trash bags, some vests and gloves available for volunteers at the maintenance office along Water Plant Road beside the Ocracoke Sanitary District.
After filling their bags with roadside trash, volunteers can secure them and leave them alongside a village road or N.C. 12 and the Ocracoke NCDOT employees will pick them up, Gaskins said.
Information is also on the NDOT Litter Sweep webpage here.
As part of ongoing litter removal efforts, NCDOT crews, contractors and volunteers have now collected more than 3 million pounds of litter from state-maintained roadsides this year.
Congressman Greg Murphy, M.D., who represents Ocracoke, is organizing and participating in a district-wide effort for constituents to clean up roadsides, beaches and parks across eastern North Carolina on Saturday, May 8.
Angie Todd, Ocracoke’s Hyde County Board of Education representative, and who has organized cleanups in the past, will organize this cleanup and post details on various Facebook pages.
All volunteers for these cleanups are encouraged to follow proper COVID-19 safety guidance. This includes wearing a mask and gloves at all times and keeping six feet apart from other volunteers.
The N.C. Department of Transportation’s Ferry Division late this afternoon (April 7) suspended all ferry service on Pamlico Sound between Cedar Island, Swan Quarter and Ocracoke through Monday, April 12, due to worsening shoaling issues in the channel just outside of Ocracoke’s Silver Lake Harbor.
Shoaling occurs when sand and sediment fill into a ferry channel making water depths too shallow and the channel too narrow for safe operation of the ferry system’s vessels.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers will continue to work in the affected channel–Bigfoot Slough–to clear the shoaling. The Ferry Division will reassess channel conditions on Monday and make a decision on whether to resume service at that time.
For up-to-the-minute information on schedule changes on the Cedar Island and Swan Quarter routes, please follow @NCFerryPamSound on Twitter.
Editor’s note: A North Carolina Court of Appeals has reversed a February 2020 decision from a Camden County Superior Court judge, ruling on Tuesday that a private walkway, although used for years by the public to access the beach, is, in fact, private. Read the story in the OBX Voice here.
No doubt, the world is complicated with simple solutions harder to come by, and Ocracoke is not exempt.
Although many have looked fondly on Ocracoke with its few local regulations, it is time to examine whether something is needed so all can have a clear understanding of what one can and cannot do.
Ocracoke is a small community with a school of about 170 students, two churches, one vehicle repair shop, one gas station and no traffic lights other than a few that inform you of your speed.
It is also a high-profile tourist destination with visitors in-season numbering in the thousands.
Islanders welcome visitors. The majority of them respect the community and many friendships have developed over the years.
But there are times when clashes occur. Loud noise late into the night, drinking and hot dogging on golf carts are some examples.
There are also times when people trespass onto private property, especially to get to the Pamlico Sound. North Carolina law says the public has a right to any beaches up to the mean high tide lines but getting to these beaches via private property can cause problems and hard feelings. Just because people have been “doing it for years” doesn’t mean it’s right.
This came to a head after people using vacant lots on the sound side as a campground, barbecue place or public toilet prompted the owners of one of these lots to install a chain link fence around their property.
Adjacent to this lot is one with a well-worn path—also on private property–that has been used to get to a small beach area.
The fence installation caused a storm on several Facebook pages with both islanders and off-islanders taking almost every position possible, such as defending private property rights and the poor aesthetics of the chain link fence.
Could the lot with the trail be made into a public park like Springer’s Point, which is owned by Coastal Land Trust, a nonprofit out of Wilmington?
Well, maybe, but not by the Trust, which is not in the business of purchasing random lots, said Janice Allen, director of land protection. The Trust manages more than 80,000 acres and does not have the resources to deal with separate lots. If this lot abutted Springer’s Point, that might be a different story, she said.
One business owner suggested that the county purchase this particular lot and create a park.
But Hyde County barely has enough money to pay for the services it does provide let alone purchase and deal with a public park on Ocracoke.
In the village, there’s much more privately owned property than is public around the harbor, North Pond and the sound and many bemoan that shortcoming, with Springer’s Point the exception.
Indeed, being close to the natural world, or living on the edge as we like to put it—there’s way less civilization here–is one of the chief appeals of Ocracoke.
But since the 1950s, the island has changed from a fishing economy to a booming tourism economy.
In the last year, despite a worldwide pandemic, Ocracoke and the Outer Banks saw steady visitation and an unprecedented real estate boom as more people bought houses to live here or as rental investments or lots on which to build new ones.
The summertime passenger ferry brings the day visitors businesses have clamored for since the ride on the Hatteras ferry became longer in 2013.
While these visitors want to shop, they also want to visit the beach and can’t do so via golf carts.
Islanders chafe at rules and regulations, yet this is something Ocracoke needs to grapple with: Who are we going to be and how do we deal with growth (development) and change?
The only government is Hyde County overseen by five elected commissioners, one of whom is from Ocracoke; but it is not his job to manage the island.
Most county offices are in Swan Quarter 23 miles away across the sound.
The island receives periodic visits by county agencies, which have been greatly curtailed due to COVID-19, but the county manager continues to make regular visits to the island.
For the island’s commissioner, Randal Mathew, that is not enough, and he said in a recent interview that he is pressing for a fulltime county liaison for Ocracoke.
Islanders and property owners need recourse other than Facebook when problems arise.
Ocracoke has no zoning and the Ocracoke Development Ordinance, which barely addresses development issues, years ago enshrined a minimum lot size of 5,000 square feet leading to the declining green space in the village.
Is it time for Ocracoke to become the first incorporated town in all of Hyde County and with all the attendant ramifications, such as having regulatory standards and requirements?
Possibly, but that would require more government and more taxes.
In the meantime, let’s all be respectful to each other. One of our good human traits is that friendliness and smiles can go a long way to avoid the stressful moments that anger and confrontation inevitably create.
