Free Republic

MANTEO, N.C. - Outer Banks residents and visitors can now just click on the Dare County Web site to get a view of a trouble spot on N.C. 12, the narrow strip of asphalt that's the only highway on Hatteras Island. A camera situated on a pole at Mirlo Beach in Rodanthe provides a live picture of the road, the beach and the ocean at what is commonly called S-curves...

OCRACOKE -- The season's first hurricane grazed the North Carolina coast Tuesday, scouring the Outer Banks with heavy winds and swamping them with fast-moving water. (Erin Lopez and Matt Caviness of the U.S. Coast Guard abandon their SUV in a flooded area of Buxton. They had just come from saving the life of a woman threatened by rising water. 'I'll trade a life for a car any time,' Caviness said.) The eye of Hurricane Alex, which strengthened to Category 2 Tuesday morning, came within 15 miles of Cape Hatteras but never made landfall. By midafternoon, it was headed out to...

Looks like the Outer Banks is about to be caught with their pants down! Hurricane Alex is now a category two (11:00 am est) and appears to be headed directly into Pamlico Sound. That puts the east side of the storm directly over Hatteras Island, which at this point is at the height of the tourist season. No evacuation orders were issued for this storm. Every one thought it would be a harmless little puppy that would remain offshore. Let's hope it makes a turn to the east right away. Otherwise, there could be trouble!!!

BULLETIN TROPICAL STORM ALEX INTERMEDIATE ADVISORY NUMBER 4A NWS TPC/NATIONAL HURRICANE CENTER MIAMI FL 2 PM EDT SUN AUG 01 2004 ...THE FIRST TROPICAL STORM OF THE SEASON FORMS... A TROPICAL STORM WARNING REMAINS IN EFFECT FROM CAPE FEAR TO CAPE HATTERAS NORTH CAROLINA...INCLUDING THE PAMLICO SOUND. A TROPICAL STORM WARNING MEANS THAT TROPICAL STORM CONDITIONS ARE EXPECTED WITHIN THE WARNING AREA WITHIN THE NEXT 24 HOURS. A TROPICAL STORM WATCH REMAINS IN EFFECT FROM EDISTO BEACH SOUTH CAROLINA TO CAPE FEAR NORTH CAROLINA. REPORTS FROM AN AIR FORCE RESERVE UNIT RECONNAISSANCE AIRCRAFT INDICATE THAT TROPICAL DEPRESSION ONE HAS STRENGTHENED...

As Hurricane Isabel tore through Eastern North Carolina, it picked on some of North Carolina's most vulnerable areas: the fragile Outer Banks and the largely poor, rural northeast corner. Now, the state and its residents are trying to figure out how to fix crumbled roads, broken power lines and waterlogged houses. By Friday night, three people were known to have died in the storm. An estimated 283,000 were without power, down from a high of 700,000, and 70,000 had no phone service. In the northeast, the lights might not be back on for as long as two weeks, utility officials...

Bodie Island light's uncertain future means rare lens in danger The Associated Press March 24, 2003   3:40 pm BODIE ISLAND, N.C. -- With the U.S. Coast Guard taking a hard look at the future of the Bodie Island Lighthouse, local officials want action to save the facility's rare Fresnel lens.In a notice issued last week, the local Coast Guard district said it was evaluating whether the 1872 tower is still valuable as an aid to navigation. Although the lighthouse is owned by the National Park Service, the optical equipment is maintained by the Coast Guard.Possible actions could include...

Insight Magazine 8/28/95 How Dick Gephardt Got His $700,000 Mansion in the Sky By Paul M. Rodriguez Nestled among the dunes at an exclusive beach along the Outer Banks in North Carolina is a palatial summer house called "Northern Star." She is bigger and fancier than most of the vacation houses that increasingly dot the eastern shores. But in the upscale community of Corolla Light, the house shines no brighter than those of wealthy neighbors except for one reason: It belongs to Richard Gephardt, a presidential hopeful in 1988, the speaker-in-waiting until last year and now leader of the minority...