State

Dunes Can Cure... And Also Can Kill By FRANK STICK When ihe "Great Atlantic Hurri¬ cane" of 1944 came roaring up from Puerto Rico, leaving death and desola¬ tion in its wake, it left also, so far as our own coastland was concerned, a warning of considerable significance. One, unfortunately however, not recog¬ nized by those who to a considerable degree controlled the destinies of the people of our Outer Banks. F;or it was not the storm's fury alone that was responsible for vast property destruc¬ tion and uncountable loss of life from the Carolinas to Newfoundland, but largely human error in creating facili¬ ties designed for protection, which in many instances, had entirely negative results. But this warning did not go entirely unheeded cither by the people of the peaceful little village of Avon, or by neighboring villages to the north. In fact, the grievous results were not en¬ tirely unexpected by the fisherfolk and coast guardsmen, who living precari¬ ously through generations under threat of the Old Ocean’s frequent rampages and knowing her better than could any outsider, had looked with dubious eye upon this so termed erosion control project, which for almost a decade had been carried on by federal agencies. I he program to which these villagers so strenuously objected and which with some justification they believed, in its ultimate effect meant death or abandon¬ ment of their homes to many of them, and certain destruction of their village was simple enough. Designed for the rehabilitation and protection of large sections of our coast, which for genera¬ tions had suffered serious beach ero¬ sion from storm and tide, and even more from the heedlessness and the de¬ structive tendencies of mankind, it had its beginning some years before. Because at that time no one else happened to be available, who pos¬ sessed even cursory knowledge of the problems involved, 1 was invited to plan and to supervise this first erosion con¬ trol project under federal sponsorship. As carefully platted from the Virginia line to Ocracokc Inlet, the job called for a series of sand barriers created through fencing, located well back from the ocean on lines of natural accretion and in endangered areas only. We also specifically provided for retention, and bridging of important flood control or natural run-off areas, which constituted the islands only safety valves in times of storm. Taken over later by another federal department, and presently under indi¬ rect supervision of the Corps of Army Engineers, with ample labor force and mechanized equipment, the work was visibly speeded up but with sharp devia¬ tions from the original design. The later program, persistently adhered to for some 28 years, provided for a continu¬ ous sand barrier 15 feet in height, ex¬ tending from inlet to inlet on Hatteras and Ocracokc Islands, ignoring not only natural laws which have preserved the Banks people from death or serious in¬ jury through their recorded history, but certain primary laws of physics; among them the primary one which provides that subject to sufficient propulsive force, impounded waters will continue to advance and to rise against whatever obstructs their movement until they break through, flow over the top. or arc otherwise diverted. In short, without definitive investiga¬ tion. those presently in charge of opera¬ tions. have blithely proceeded along the straight line of least resistance, disre¬ garding natural accretive lines and for¬ mations, lilling in and blocking off es¬ sential natural run-off areas as they came to them. And it is this perhaps too simple, even somewhat puerile ap¬ proach to a problem of many in¬ tricacies, which no one actually knows too much about, combined with events which occurred during the 1944 tropi¬ cal storm and later, which changed a mild mannered, peaceful, and disccm- THE STATE. NOVEMBER 9, 1963