An aerial view of my neighborhood. Note: that ribbon of water bisecting the island should not be there. Photo: Associated Press/StarNewsOnline.com
One of my best friends essentially lost his home this weekend. It’s gone. Rumbling around somewhere at the bottom of a large mass of water – like a lot of things that once seemed quite permanent.
Mirlo Beach, a small stretch of stilted cottages in Rodanthe, North Carolina (best known for the hollow waves at S-Turns that I’d brag about endlessly given the opportunity) looks a lot more like a war zone than the site of my first job at Lisa’s Pizzeria. (Dishwasher. Then pizza slicer/cheese grater. Then waiter. Then demoted back to pizza slicer/cheese grater after a few jumbled orders during peak hours. I eventually made it back to waiter, though. It was a tough sell.)
Judging by the aerial footage on WRAL.com, the Atlantic devoured stretches Hatteras Island, effectively severing my parent’s house and everything south of it from the rest of America. And according to an email from one of my neighbors (who’s house “exploded into flames”), the island’s full-time residents are stranded without cell, water, or electric service. There is, however, a ferry running periodically for residents.
Yet we knew this was coming. How could we not?
One summer, seven houses fell into the ocean just south of us. Gone. Thirteen others were condemned. Each fall, the island’s only road, Route 12, is destroyed and rebuilt multiple times. We had to move America’s tallest lighthouse half a mile inland to keep it intact.
Yet, we stay. Stubbornly and indefinitely, because we love it.
The wind in the summer blows relentlessly from the southwest. The mosquitoes fatten with blood. They discriminate not. Deep, black storms blister the coast without warning, unleashing stadiums of water below. Fishermen reel in buckets of bluefish and butter platefuls of lump crab meat at the day’s end. Nor’easters spike the ocean into a frenzy. We watch and wait, hoping sustained offshores will groom the ocean into those dreamy lines we scribble in high school notebooks. Then, in the winter, it’s desolate and cold. Each season, like the island, is conspicuously temporary.
And one day, the Outer Banks will probably no longer exist. Not like we know it today. It might be an asterisk on a map in a middle school geography textbook. An abstract idea that won’t bear much meaning in the thirty seventh lesson plan of the year. We were the lucky ones who got to enjoy it. Right place, right time. Nothing more. We’re the lucky ones.
In the meantime, we’ll fight for every inch of sand. We’ll rebuild the roads, hire engineers to displace the new inlets and return Lisa’s Pizzeria and every other local business and resident back to their feet. We know it’s all temporary, though. That’s why we love it so much.
What's left of my friend's house.
Communication has been sporadic in affected areas, so if you have any more information about the health and safety of those affected by the storm or any ways to help, please feel free to share below.
