a costly expenditure in terms of bridge 

 maintenance, transportation officials 

 have found. 



A thorn in the transportation 

 department's side since its completion, 

 the multi-million-dollar Herbert C. 

 Bonner Bridge has cost the state ad- 

 ditional millions to keep the bridge 

 standing over the shifting Oregon 

 Inlet. 



The inlet's channel, once at the 

 northern end of the bridge, has now 

 drifted to the southern end, sweeping 

 about 30 feet of sand from around pil- 

 ings. 



Lee says old pilings had to be 

 stabilized and new ones driven to keep 

 the bridge from collapsing. 



Though Lee says the situation is un- 

 der control now, the Corps of 

 Engineers is considering building jet- 

 ties to stop the inlet's southerly migra- 

 tion. 



This project, however, raises en- 

 vironmental questions that will be con- 

 sidered in the November issue of 

 Coastwatch. 



Photo by Jim Page 



The swing-span bridge that connects Atlantic Beach and Morehead City 



Taylors lived high and dry 



Andy and Carolyn Taylor are mak- 

 ing their home on dry ground these 

 days. But time was when the Pamlico 

 River ran 12 feet beneath the floor- 

 boards of their house and U.S. 17 

 passed within yards of their front door. 



The Taylors lived for 12 years on a 

 drawbridge near Washington, N.C. 



They and their son, Drew, moved 

 into the house in 1943 so Andy could 

 assume duties as the bridge's tender. 



Taylor remained on call 24 hours a 

 day to open the bridge for water traffic 

 that moved up and down the Pamlico 

 River. "For a while Andy worked 29 

 days a month," says Carolyn Taylor, 

 "and I would have to bring Charlie the 

 barber out from town to cut his hair." 



Taylor says the job was dull because 

 traffic on the river was light. But, oc- 

 casionally there was a little excitement. 



Andy recalls that once Carolyn was 

 on the back porch hanging out clothes 

 as a tugboat was hauling a large barge 

 through the opened bridge. 



"The tug captain had approached 

 the opening from the wrong angle," 

 Taylor says, "and the barge was 

 headed straight for the corner of the 

 house. I began hollering at my wife to 



move and at the captain to control the 

 barge." 



Carolyn Taylor says she dropped her 

 laundry, headed around the side of the 

 house and ran into the street. 



The captain spotted his mistake and 

 corrected the barge's course. But in do- 

 ing so he caused his own vessel to rock 

 so violently that the operator's house 

 was partially submerged in the water 

 as the tug rolled from side to side, 

 Taylor recalls. 



The Taylors also remember 

 Hurricane Hazel's blow through North 

 Carolina in 1954. Taylor remembers 

 that as the storm approached winds 

 became strong and the house began to 

 sway and groan. "When I saw the 

 water in the kitchen sink being sloshed 

 across the floor I told Carolyn it was 

 time for her and the children to leave," 

 he says. 



Taylor said he waited the storm out 

 at a nearby filling station where he 

 could keep an eye on the bridge. 



While runaway barges and 

 hurricanes weren't usual experiences, 

 the Taylors found that even their 

 everyday life was altered by living on a 

 bridge. 



"I used to grieve that Drew didn't 

 have a yard or a neighborhood," says 

 Carolyn Taylor, "but he had his own 

 little boat that he rowed along the 

 river." 



Carolyn Taylor said her husband 

 wasn't the only one who knew how to 

 open the bridge. "One night Andy was 

 ill and I had to climb up to the bridge 

 house and open the bridge myself," she 

 said. "Andy had shown me how to 

 open it, but I was scared to death." 



The Taylors tried to make their 

 house as much like other homes as 

 possible by planting shrubs, vines and 

 vegetables in barrels around the house 

 and building flower boxes by the win- 

 dows. 



Living on a bridge with small 

 children posed an added worry for the 

 Taylors. They tacked up chicken wire 

 anywhere they thought the children 

 might fall through and watched them 

 closely when they were outdoors. 



The Taylors moved away in 1955 

 and the bridge house was torn down 

 several years later. But Carolyn Taylor 

 keeps a book of snapshots stashed 

 away in a drawer to remind her family 

 of the bridge home. 



