Vacation blackout: Power outage hits North Carolina islands
A man-made power outage — not an approaching hurricane — forced 10,000 tourists to flee the Outer Banks and turned summer vacation into a messy nightmare for many.
People and cars lined up Friday to get on ferries, the only way off Ocracoke Island, after a mandatory evacuation order was announced. Gas stations ran perilously low on fuel and ice, and business owners complained about losing a chunk of their most lucrative time of year due to a construction crew accidentally severing a main transmission line. Without power, air conditioners went silent and ceiling fans stopped humming.
“We were really disappointed. You’re used to things like this happening from Mother Nature on Ocracoke, but not from human error,” said Kivi Leroux Miller, who awoke in a hot rental house Thursday morning.
The Lexington, North Carolina, resident had to cut short her yearly vacation with her husband and two children, and they were among the last cars on a packed ferry Friday morning.
“There was definitely this sort of sadness with everyone having to leave,” she said.
Ocracoke and Hatteras Islands went dark on Thursday when a construction company building a new bridge between islands drove a steel casing into an underground transmission line. The company, PCL Construction, was digging at the site Friday to determine the extent of the damage. Officials said it could be days or weeks before it’s fixed.
North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper declared a state of emergency as generators were sent to the islands. Officials urged people to use them only for fans and refrigerators so that they would not overload them.
The islands, which have about 5,000 permanent residents, rely heavily on the summer tourist season for their local economies.
“In a seasonal community like Ocracoke, there’s three to five months out of the year when most businesses are closed,” said Jason Wells, owner of Jason’s Restaurant on Ocracoke Island. “So when you take this hit in July and factor in that you’re only open eight months out of the year, it’s big. It’s a lot more than people even realize.”
Wells said his restaurant, closed by the outage, is missing out on between $5,000 and $6,000 a day in sales. His 25 workers typically make between $75 and $250 a day.
While Howard’s Pub nearby was serving a full menu on generator power, owner Ann Warner said business had plummeted as tourists streamed off the island. Her restaurant would usually be packed for Friday lunch.
“This is a man-made disaster, and, yes, people are very upset,” she said.