Save Currituck’s Eroding Beach
Currituck’s wide, uncrowded beaches have long been a major attraction for renters and home buyers. But as early as the 1990s the Army Corps of Engineers was measuring at least two feet of beach erosion per year. More than sixty feet of beach has been lost since then and the ocean is that much closer to the homes.
In 2003 Hurricane Isabel devastated Currituck’s beach destroying dunes and most beach decks and walkways, even washing under some COBX homes. The beach debris from the wreckage was such that the National Guard was called to help property owners and their Associations clean up.
2003 Post-Isabel homeowners pitch in to help each other cleanup debris washed up to the foundations of houses.
Oceanfront owners and local home owner associations financed the trucking in of new sand, the replanting of dune grass, rebuilding ruined walkways and installing of fencing to protect the dune. But the new new dune line was 15 to 20 feet closer to homes than before the storm.
But despite these efforts, the storms keep coming and the beach keeps narrowing. Currituck has now lost much of its usable dry beach, even as the dune line has been pushed much closer to homes.
Beaches are open to the public in N.C., and continue to attract tourists, but at high tide there is now very little dry sand for our visitors. Beach crowding has made our beaches less attractive.
The Corolla Civic Association and the now disbanded County Economic Development Advisory Board have briefed Currituck County on these issues since 2010, urging the County’s intervention to save Currituck’s beaches—and Currituck’s beach economy—but they’ve chosen not to act.
Our shrinking beach means that even mild winter storms eat away at the dunes. The video below shows the damage of a single nor’easter in 2018, and how close some homes are to destruction by the next big storm.
Fall 2019 storms continue to ravage Corolla’s beaches and dunes. Even normal high tides (+2 ft above sea level) reduce the dry sand beach to nearly nothing. For oceanfront homeowners, the threat to homes, decks, and walkways is imminent.
The County knew that beach erosion was a problem in 2003 when they petitioned the State to allow them to raise the OT rate by 50% to fund beach nourishment. But since then, despite $50 million in extra collections due to the tax increase, they’ve done virtually nothing.
