Shooting The Breeze by Irene Nolan

By IRENE NOLAN

The beach cottage Serendipity stands almost as if it is the island’s sentinel at the northern edge of Rodanthe in the Mirlo Beach subdivision – the first house you encounter as you travel south on Hatteras through villages with many oceanfront houses.

The views from the house are magnificent with the ocean to the east and the sound to the west and the expanse of undeveloped Pea Island National Wildlife Refuge to the north.

When it was built in 1988 by Roger Meekins of Manteo, Serendipity was really large by Hatteras Island standards. Those were the days when modest one-story “beach boxes” dominated the rental cottage market, and Serendipity was an attention getter.

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Today, Serendipity is a sentinel of another sort, warning of the conflict between development and nature on the Atlantic coast. And it’s getting attention for a different reason.

With every storm, the ocean gets closer to the house and to Highway 12, the only roadway access to Hatteras Island. And some folks, including Dare County’s commissioners, would like to see a dune line to protect Highway 12 instead of a house on that site.

In a hurricane or major northeaster, we expect that Highway 12 will be closed by ocean overwash, not only in northern Rodanthe but through Pea Island.

On Saturday, Nov. 3, as Hurricane Noel passed several hundred miles off the coast, the waves were huge and the ocean surged over the highway at Mirlo Beach and on Pea Island. The road was closed for about 24 hours, causing traffic to back up in both directions as visitors waited to leave after Saturday checkout at cottages and a new wave of visitors waited to get on the island.

Mirlo Beach was a mess, even after the highway was opened, and motorists were driving their vehicles through saltwater. The less-than-polite motorists who drove much too fast for the conditions splashed saltwater over all the vehicles they passed.

That’s not the worst of it, though.

It no longer takes a major storm or northeaster to bring the ocean over Highway 12 at Mirlo Beach. These days, a minor blow or even, in some cases, a stiff wind can bring ocean water surging over the roadway.

We have become used to the sight of North Carolina Department of Transportation equipment pushing sand off the road, piling up sand into a barrier against the ocean in front of Serendipity and some other properties, or just sitting idle waiting for the next overwash event.

We have gotten used to not being able to get through on the highway or to delays caused by bulldozers pushing wet sand around. Locals can’t get off the island for work, for medical appointments, for shopping. Visitors can’t get on or off the island. Trucks can’t make their deliveries to island businesses. Emergency vehicles can’t take patients off the island, and law enforcement personnel are limited in their travel.

In July, the Dare County Board of Commissioners decided that enough was enough. The board passed a resolution calling on the DOT to do something about the problems.

“WHEREAS, without NCDOT ownership and control of the property in this area,” the resolution passed on July 16 reads, “NC 12 will continue to be routinely closed after minor routine storms resulting in continuing negative impacts on the lives of the residents and visitors to Hatteras Island and to the Dare County economy.”

The commissioners singled out Mirlo Beach as the problem area, specifically Lots 1, 2, and 3 of Section 1 of the subdivision, noting that the owners of some or all of the lots remove the sand pushed up in front of their property to stop the ocean waters in order to gain access to the properties.

The board resolution calls on DOT to immediately study the area at the northern end of Rodanthe “to determine what measures need to be taken to protect the NC 12 from closure during minor and routine storms, including the acquisition of property in that area to prevent the removal of sand used to protect NC 12.”

“It makes me extremely frustrated and angry,” says Hatteras Island Commissioner Allen Burrus, who is vice-chairman of the board, “that three or maybe four properties can cut off all traffic, including islanders, visitors, deliveries, and ambulances.

“How responsible is that?” he asks.

The Mirlo Beach Investment Corp. was founded in the 1950s by D. Victor Meekins and several distant cousins. It was 30 years later when Roger Meekins, Victor’s son, began developing the Mirlo Beach subdivision, bordering the wildlife refuge and stretching into the northernmost area of Rodanthe. There are 70 lots, 21 of them on the oceanfront.

Serendipity was the first house built in 1988. At the time, Roger Meekins says there was at least 400 feet of sand between the house and the ocean – but not these days.

On Nov. 16, after Noel passed offshore, there was 20 feet of sand between Serendipity and the ocean at high tide, according to Jack Flythe, environmental health supervisor for the Dare County Department of Health. And there is no dune.

The pounding surf during Noel’s passage broke the septic tank at Serendipity and filled it with sand, Flythe said. The drainfield has been damaged also, he added.

The electric power to the house, he said, has been turned off, and the property has been condemned – as it has been before.

But Serendipity just keeps on coming back, and in the process, it has become one of the most famous – or maybe infamous – houses on the island.

It has survived and come back as a rental house through an impressive number of storms.
In just the past few years, it weathered Hurricane Isabel in 2003, which knocked off decks and doors and broke windows and did damage to the interior of the house.

Last Thanksgiving, a northeaster sent the ocean surging over Mirlo Beach, closing the highway and causing the volunteer fire department to use its ladders to evacuate about 75 people from rental cottages in Rodanthe from Mirlo Beach to the pier.

And in May, another northeaster caused headaches for Hollywood filmmakers who had chosen Serendipity for location shooting of “Night in Rodanthe,” by Nicolas Sparks, which is scheduled to be released next summer. The filmmakers chose the location for its remote and dramatic setting and got more drama than they bargained for. Damage to the property called for repairs that set the beginning of filming back at least a week.

Up and down the island after every major hurricane or northeaster, Hatteras islanders ask, “Is Serendipity still there?”

And, so far, it has been. When Meekins built the house, he sunk the pilings down 14 feet anchoring them in concrete footings. The house may not be going anywhere, at least for now, but the ocean just keeps on getting closer and doing more damage in lesser storms.

Shoreline erosion rates in the area are 16 feet a year, according to Jim Meads, the county’s officer for CAMA permits.

Stan Riggs, a coastal geology research professor at East Carolina University, predicts there will eventually be an inlet in the area of north Rodanthe and the S-Curves on Highway 12.

“It’s going to breach,” Riggs said in an interview earlier this year in The Virginian-Pilot.
“You’re going to have an inlet there. That shoreline has moved an incredible distance in the last 100 years. It’s a war between DOT trying to keep that beach there and the storms.”

Riggs also had words for Mirlo Beach property owners.

“They have no business being there,” he said. “That is among the highest-energy oceanfronts on the whole East Coast. If you want to live in the ocean, that’s where you want to be.”

The high erosion rate and frequent overwash are a problem from Mirlo Beach to the Hatteras Island Fishing Pier in Rodanthe, but the focus has been on those first three lots in Mirlo Beach.

Lots 2 and 3 are undeveloped and are owned, according to county tax records, by Investin Counseling and Development Corp. of Reston, Va. The lots are valued at $148,000 on the tax rolls, and are currently not buildable because of the state’s setback requirements, according to Meads, the county’s CAMA officer.

A building on the lots, Meads said, must be set back 60 feet from the first line of stable vegetation on the beach. Currently there is no first line of vegetation – no vegetation at all. The lots were grandfathered into the 60-foot setback requirement, he said. The current requirement is a 480 foot setback, which, he said, “would be on the other side of the highway.”

Serendipity, on Lot 1, was bought by Michael and Susan Creasy of Holiday, Pa., in 2003, just months before Hurricane Isabel hit the island and caused major damage. The ocean overwash and damage have continued for the past four years, and Michael Creasy said they “just keep putting it back together.”

“It’s a wonderful piece of property,” he said in a telephone interview. “We love the property and love the house, and our renters love it too.”

The erosion and overwash, he said, are a “concern.”

“All of us in Mirlo Beach,” he said, “hope that at some point there will be some beach nourishment.”

Until then, the owners hope to keep repairing the house, which was appraised by the county for tax purposes this year at $396,900. According to county records, the Creasys paid $525,000 for the property.

Creasy said they have not had problems with collecting on their insurance policy, though he did not say how often they have collected on damage.

Even though low-cost premiums are subsidized by public money, the amounts paid in National Flood Insurance Policy claims are not public record because of privacy concerns. The program administrator, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, provides information to policyholders only.

Creasy said that repairs to Serendipity are on hold until after the winter northeasters.

“We hope to have the good old girl up and going by May,” he said, which is when their rental season begins.

That may be easier said than done.

Flythe, the county’s environmental health officer who noted that there was only 20 feet of sand in front of the property at high tide on Nov. 16, said that a minimum of 50 feet from the high tide line is required to permit a new septic system under state regulations. So until the beach builds out in front of Serendipity, there will be no new septic system.

And DOT apparently has no plans to condemn or acquire the Mirlo Beach properties any time soon to stabilize the duneline and protect the highway.

Warren Judge, chairman of the county Board of Commissioners, says DOT has not replied to the board’s resolution.

DOT does have a project in its current Transportation Improvement Program to relocate Highway 12 and provide dune reconstruction and stabilization in the north Rodanthe area, according to spokesperson Dara Demi.

Right-of-way acquisition would begin in November, 2009, with construction starting in November, 2010, on the $1.9 million project.

“The department is not at a point yet in its study of the area to determine if acquiring right of way will include purchasing the properties referenced in the Dare County Board of Commissioners resolution,” Demi said in an e-mail.

Meanwhile, Allen Burrus and others among us will stay “hot and bothered” when relatively minor storms send the water through Mirlo Beach and onto Highway 12, closing it to traffic or forcing us to drive our vehicles through saltwater.

“I implore NCDOT,” Burrus says, “to buy those areas for a right of way and put up a dune line.”

Of course, relocating a roadway or building new dunes doesn’t happen quickly in a fragile coastal environment, as well they should not. These actions deserve scrutiny by regulators.

And so does the issue of private properties causing increasingly frequent closures of a public highway that is necessary for the safety of residents and visitors and the economy of Hatteras – and even Ocracoke – islands.

It’s time for DOT to step up to the plate.

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