The dunes of Pea Island at sunset

Outer Banks’ Dunes feel ancient and permanent, but if you dig into their history, you’ll find that’s not always the case…

As early as the 1905, a member of the US Forest Service warned of the erosion of wooded areas of the Outer Banks, often referred to as “ghost forests” in the tide line.

The stumps of Carova Beach at low tide

In the 1930’s, President Franklin D. Roosevelt announced his New Deal. The Works Progress Administration (WPA) with help from the National Park Service hired fifteen hundred WPA and Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) workers to build a dune line on the Outer Banks. The plan called for a line of man-made, vegetated dunes stabilized with fences. The result of the workers’ effort was the construction of more than 3 million feet of oceanside sand fencing and a system of sand dunes that ranged in height from 10 feet to 25 feet tall.

Photography Courtesy National Park Service, Cape Hatteras National Seashore Collection

PHOTOGRAPH BY MARK VANDYKE

The sand dune project was considered a success, as the presence of the protective dunes prohibited storm surges from ravaging the island and flooding lowland areas along the Outer Banks. Today, the vast majority of these man-made dunes still remain, and efforts are constantly underway to rebuild any dunes that are damaged or destroyed in coastal storms.

Photography Courtesy National Park Service, Cape Hatteras National Seashore CollectionPHOTOGRAPH BY MARK VANDYKE

Scientists have long since theorized that the man-made dunes have actually harmed the island’s natural process of moving westward while absorbing storm effects. The dunes can act as a buffer against ocean surge, but they also block sound waters from rushing back to the ocean when other parts of the dune system are breached. The result is a wet sandbar with millions of dollars of damage to personal property and tourism dollars lost. The local economy is negatively impacted as thousands of vacations are ruined or postponed .

Route 12 on Hatteras Island after a storm surge

So the Outer Banks continues to build, to rebuild, nourish and renourish. Whether it is the right thing to do for the island, its inhabitants and its guests is a question we grapple with still.

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