Temporary bridge to Hatteras Island nearly complete

HATTERAS ISLAND, N.C.

Under construction for less than a month, a new bridge built to carry motorists over fickle Outer Banks islands is nearly complete and will open to traffic by Oct. 15 - if weather conditions cooperate with a North Carolina Department of Transportation schedule.

The 662-foot, two-lane, temporary causeway will stretch across a channel carved by Hurricane Irene that's grown to 200 feet wide and up to 8 feet deep.

But how long it serves as the connection between the northern Outer Banks and Hatteras Island - severed when the Aug. 27 storm cut a new inlet through N.C. 12 in the Pea Island National Wildlife Refuge - has not been determined.

"When we say temporary, that means it can last years and years," said NCDOT spokeswoman Greer Beaty. "Temporary does not mean, like, six months. It can mean a decade if it has to.

"What we mean is it's made of metal and it's in a coastal environment and, after a series of 10, 20 years, metal will corrode with the saltwater. So it is not a permanent solution for that location."

Its lifespan, Beaty said, depends on a permanent fix that transportation officials have yet to propose. Gov. Beverly Perdue has asked NCDOT to present a long-term strategy for the Pea Island breach within six months.

Irene punched holes in multiple places along N.C. 12, cutting off highway access to seven Hatteras Island villages and the Hatteras-Ocracoke ferry, and forcing transportation officials to scramble for a solution. State and federal officials from more than a dozen agencies convened to review ideas. Within a week of the storm, NCDOT had announced plans for a temporary bridge across the largest breach.

Crews have been working since early September to build the bridge, located about 6 miles south of Oregon Inlet. Designed and delivered by a Maryland-based company, it is a puzzle of custom parts held together by large pins and bolts.

At another breach just north of Rodanthe, crews have begun to lay 9,000 tons of asphalt on a section of N.C. 12 that was reduced to rubble by Hurricane Irene. NCDOT officials estimated Friday that the roadway will be fully reopened by Oct. 15.

Meanwhile, Hatteras Island's 4,000 residents have relied on emergency ferry service, and waits can be long. Visitors to Hatteras' southern villages can get there only by taking circuitous ferry routes from Swan Quarter or Cedar Island to Ocracoke Island, and then another ferry to Hatteras.

Irene was not the first storm to challenge engineers in a spot that's been known as New Inlet since at least the 18th century. The name, according to a renowned Outer Banks historian, first appeared on a map from 1738.

In his 1958 book "The Outer Banks of North Carolina," the late David Stick wrote: "It seems to be the practice along the North Carolina coast, when an inlet cuts through the Banks, to refer to it as 'The New Inlet' until a newer one appears; and on several occasions the name 'New Inlet' has stuck. Such was the case with the 'here-again-gone-again' inlet between Pea Island and Chicamacomico Banks."

New Inlet opened and closed repeatedly during the 1920s and 1930s, Stick wrote. Hurricanes in 1933 prompted state authorities to build wooden bridges across two small channels slashed out by the storms, he wrote.

From an environmental perspective, building a bridge is preferred to filling the inlet with sand and pavement, said Dennis Stewart, a Pea Island National Wildlife Refuge biologist.

The Outer Banks' shifting sands have long been defined by inlets, carved out by storms, that later shoaled in. Considering that Oregon Inlet is the only sound-to-ocean waterway between Virginia and the channel between Hatteras and Ocracoke islands, New Inlet may be the extra valve needed to stabilize the islands for a while, Stewart said.

"We can work with the coastal processes or we can fight them," he said. "If we fight them, we're only going to accelerate the loss of the barrier island system. What's happening there now is managing with the system as opposed to managing against the system."

In a news release earlier this week, Pea Island refuge Manager Mike Bryant sought to dispel rumors that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service was interfering in construction plans.

"Refuge management has always permitted emergency actions by the N.C. Department of Transportation to re-establish access and has never caused delay in restoring the highway after a storm," Bryant said in the release. "The current situation is not an exception to that documented history. We have been there since the first meeting, and we have given immediate approval to every request the DOT has made for emergency road repairs."

As transportation officials shift their focus to a long-term solution, Dare County Manager Bobby Outten said the county will support strategies that emphasize reliable access to Hatteras Island.

All of coastal Dare County is vulnerable, and there will be other breaches, he said.

"We'll do what we always do. We'll figure out how to fix it."

Erin James, (252) 441-1711, erin.james@pilotonline.com