d f t deck 



Emily Summons 

 New Flood Maps for 

 Hatteras 



Nature isn't always evenhanded. 

 Hurricane Emily demonstrated this in 

 September, flooding homes on the 

 Pamlico Sound and eating away at the 

 Outer Banks beachfront near rip cur- 

 rents and shifting sandbars. 



Sea Grant's coastal engineer, 

 Spencer Rogers, says the building 

 code served the communities well 

 with regard to wind damage, but pre- 

 dicted flood elevations fell short. 



"The flooding in the area from 

 Hatteras to Buxton was 1 to 2 feet 

 higher than the predicted 100-year 

 storm," he says. This will probably 

 result in revised flood maps for the 

 area within the next year, Rogers says. 



"Most of the major wind damage 

 occurred to either older buildings or 

 buildings that hadn't been constructed 

 to code," says Rogers, adding that 

 shingle damage was widespread. "The 

 things that were damaged by the 

 winds were what you'd expect to be 

 damaged: poorly connected roofs, 

 porches, eaves, mobile homes." 



But he says the storm provided 

 less than a full test of the wind code. 

 The building code is based on 1 10 

 mph winds. Emily never exceeded 

 sustained winds of more than 80 to 

 90 mph. Peak gusts on the ground 

 measured 107 mph. 



Rogers spent the weeks after the 

 hurricane measuring water marks and 

 observing the wreckage on the island. 

 Setting up camp with the state's Divi- 

 sion of Emergency Management and 

 the U.S. Geological Survey, he looked 

 at debris and water lines inside houses 

 and assessed damage along the shore- 

 line and dunes. 



Recently constructed homes on 

 pilings fared well. But the old, 

 low-lying houses on the sound side 

 were hardest hit by flooding. The 



worst damage was to the old villages 

 of Avon, Buxton, Frisco and Hatteras. 

 About 700 buildings along Cape 

 Hatteras were damaged or destroyed, 

 including about 100 mobile homes, 

 says Rogers. 



An expert on hurricane-resistant 

 construction, Rogers is comparing his 

 findings to past storms and evaluating 

 possibilities for future storm damage. 

 Also, Sea Grant is sponsoring engi- 

 neering research with N.C. A&T Uni- 

 versity that will examine shingle dam- 

 age on homes blasted by the storm. 



Record Numbers 

 Sweep Shorelines 



In numbers of volunteers, First 

 Citizens Bank Big Sweep '93 was the 

 biggest cleanup ever of North 

 Carolina's beaches and inland water- 

 ways. The annual September cleanup 

 attracted 12,287 volunteers to the 

 cause of bagging aquatic debris. 



The bounty — more than 223 

 tons of garbage — fell short of last 

 year's 256 tons. Executive Director 

 Susan Bartholomew says that's be- 

 cause many of the cleanup sites were 

 repeats from years past. 



"We appear to be making a dif- 

 ference and changing people's behav- 

 ior," she says. "On the coast, we've 

 found that sites that were cleaned up 

 several years in a row often don't get 

 littered as badly." 



Bartholomew says organizers will 

 be looking for new sites for Big 

 Sweep '94, particularly inland. 



"Some of our mountain organiz- 

 ers reported that they could have used 

 many more volunteers to get at the 

 problem there," she says. "Next year, 

 we're going to target some of those 

 areas." 



As usual, volunteers found the 

 unusual — a scarecrow in Transyl- 

 vania County and X-rated videos in 

 Forsyth County. Volunteers also re- 



moved more than 1 ,500 tires from riv- 

 ers and estuaries. 



Participants counted and recorded 

 every piece of litter they bagged. The 

 tally sheets will be sent to the Center 

 for Marine Conservation in Washing- 

 ton, D.C., for tabulation. Big Sweep 

 uses the results to tailor educational 

 programs for target audiences. 



The N.C. Big Sweep is a year- 

 round educational program. For 

 more information about the event, 

 its committees or programs, call 919/ 

 856-6686. Or write N.C. Big Sweep, 

 P.O. Box 550, Raleigh, NC 27602. 



Saving Turtles in North 

 Carolina Waters 



These days, turtle excluder devices 

 (TEDs) are a common net accessory 

 on boats that fish the South Atlantic 

 Coast. The rectangular and oval- 

 shaped contraptions have bounced 

 turtles out of shrimp nets here and in 

 the Gulf of Mexico for about six years. 



But only recently have North 

 Carolina flounder fishermen been 

 added to the list of commercial water- 

 men required to fit their nets with 

 TEDs. For the second consecutive 

 season, the National Marine Fisheries 

 Service (NMFS) is mandating this 

 turtle-protection measure in flounder 

 boats that trawl the ocean between the 

 North Carolina-South Carolina state 

 line and Cape Charles,Va. 



The poor performance of TEDs in 

 flounder nets last year had commercial 

 fishermen apprehensively preparing 

 for the 1993-94 season. 



Last year, fishermen in this region 

 landed nearly 1 1 million pounds of 

 summer flounder worth about $14 mil- 

 lion. But they complained that their 

 harvests were marred by conchs clog- 

 ging TEDs early in the season, be- 

 tween November and December. 

 Dogfish piled into the nets through 

 January, the end of the season. 



22 NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 1993 



