Photo by Clay Nolen 



Mounting A Sandy Defense 



Thirty years ago, most North 

 Carolinians thought the dunes 

 were. . .well, pretty. They provided 

 some relief to an otherwise flat ter- 

 rain, and the dune grasses and sea 

 oats that topped their crests waved 

 majestically in the sea breeze. 



Developers of hotels and motels 

 saw the dunes as an unnecessary 

 barrier between their patrons and the 

 ocean they came to see and play in. 

 So, they bulldozed the dunes flat. 



No one understood that these 

 swells of sand may well have been 

 what kept their home, hotel or favor- 

 ite vacation spot from washing away 

 during big storms and hurricanes. 



Dunes, you see, are the first line of 

 defense against the sea. 



And that's a concept Sea Grant, 

 the N.C. Division of Coastal Manage- 

 ment and environmental groups have 

 drummed into North Carolinians' 

 heads during the last 25 years. 



Now a developer or potential prop- 

 erty owner wouldn't consider buying 

 property that didn't have dunes hug- 

 ging the beach. 



In fact, Sea Grant coastal engineer 

 Spencer Rogers, says, "North Caro- 

 linians now have a dune fetish. They 

 know that dunes are a good thing to 

 have and that they can offer substan- 

 tial protection to their island home 

 and development. 



"And although we've successfully 

 heightened awareness, the public has 

 a perception that dunes do some 

 things they can't do and never will 

 do,' ' Rogers says. 



Rogers warns, for instance, that 

 sand dunes do not stop day-to-day 

 beach erosion. That kind of erosion 

 is gradual and dictated by offshore 

 events and shoreline processes. 



But dunes do play a major role in 

 slowing the erosion from big storms 

 such as hurricanes and northeasters. 

 They act as temporary protective bar- 

 riers. But, they are not permanent 

 structures that can hold off the ocean 

 indefinitely. 



"During storms, the more sand 

 you have between you and the 

 ocean, the more time it takes to wash 

 it away,' ' Rogers says. 



And when it comes to storm pro- 

 tection, it's not the shape of the 

 dune that counts. It's the volume of 



Continued on next page. 



