Hurricane Maria swirls over North Carolina
Outer Banks hit with rain, wind after storm regains strength
Waves, N.C. — Maria regained strength and became a hurricane again Wednesday, pushing water over both sides of North Carolina’s Outer Banks and taking its time to slowly turn away from the U.S. Atlantic coast.
No injuries have been reported, but the surge of ocean water washed over eroded beaches, flooding properties and state Highway 12, the only road through the narrow barrier islands of Hatteras and Ocracoke.
No ferries were moving, cutting off access to Ocracoke, and with parts of the highway flooded even at low tide, any travel on Hatteras remains hazardous, Dare County Emergency Management Director Drew Pearson said in an email. He said the worst problems were on Hatteras Island, where more than 10,000 visitors left under an evacuation order, but hundreds of local residents were allowed to stay.
The National Hurricane Center said an Air Force Reserve reconnaissance aircraft measured Maria’s top sustained winds at near 75 mph, with higher gusts. Its center was about 180 miles off Cape Hatteras at 2 p.m. Wednesday.
While Maria’s most punishing hurricane-force winds remained offshore, tropical storm-force winds extended for as much as 230 miles from the center, churning up the surf on both sides of the islands.
The hurricane’s forward speed is just 6 mph, so the storm was lingering before swinging out to sea.
On Hatteras, a fine rain fell Wednesday, with patches of blue sky occasionally showing through. Police set up a check point to block all traffic except for residents and reporters. As the winds picked up, waves crashed up to and beyond ocean-front homes between the communities of Rodanthe and Avon, where the water has washed under waterfront homes and onto side streets since Tuesday at high tide.
“Mother Nature keeps chopping at it,” said Tony Meekins, 55, a lifelong resident of Avon who works as an engineer on the temporarily halted Hatteras-Ocracoke ferry. “We see storm after storm.”
Standing near Avon’s closed fishing pier, Meekins pointed to where the dune line is gone, pounded down by previous storms. At low tide, a layer of wet sand covered the road.
Chip Stevens owns Blackbeard’s Lodge, a 38-unit hotel on Ocracoke. He hopes the highway remains passable on both islands to enable the people and supplies that arrive by ferry to move up and down the island.
This weather is only the latest tropical blow to the Outer Banks, among the most fragile islands in the continental United States. Officials warned that the surge of ocean water and waves would overwhelm sand dunes from both the ocean and from Pamlico Sound, which separates the islands from the mainland. Bulldozers were in place to push the sand off Highway 12 when water subsides.