mentalists contend that the jetties would 

 increase erosion on the adjacent Pea 

 Island National Wildlife Refuge and 

 might prevent juvenile fish from finding 

 their way into the protected nursery areas 

 of Pamlico and Albemarle sounds. 



When I visit, I find few folks to 

 speak of the Oregon Inlet that existed in 

 the era before Bonner Bridge went up in 

 1963. Nearly forgotten are the old 

 Confederate fort, the two lighthouses and 

 one historic lifesaving station long since 

 lost to the inlet's migration, the ferry 

 service started in 1 924 by a local fisher 

 and the shuttles the state ran in the 1950s 

 with converted U.S. Navy landing craft. 

 Mention Oregon Inlet today, and there is 

 little talk of its storied past. Instead, the 

 subject inevitably leads to a single 

 conundrum: What can we, what should 

 we, what will we do with Oregon Inlet? 



Located nine miles south of 

 Whalebone Junction, where U.S. 64 

 transects the Outer Banks, Oregon Inlet is 

 today the only inlet between Cape Henry, 

 Va., and North Carolina's Hatteras Inlet, 



1 30 miles down the shore. Safe passage 

 through Oregon Inlet is critical to a 

 commercial and recreational fishing 

 fleet, but it has long been known as one 

 of the most violent inlets on the East 

 Coast — one newspaper writer tagged 

 the inlet "the undertaker" of the 

 Graveyard of the Atlantic — and its 

 shifting shoals have been blamed for at 

 least 21 deaths since 1963. 



But far more than fish dinners come 

 through Oregon Inlet. Relying on the 

 inlet are boats from as far away as 

 Edenton and Elizabeth City, Kitty Hawk 

 and Duck, Columbia, the Alligator 

 River area and Engelhard on the 

 Pamlico shore. 

 Oregon Inlet is 

 the closest door 

 to the open ocean 

 for yachters; 

 recreational 

 fishers in charter 

 boats and 

 personal 

 sportfishing 



boats; commercial fishers in netters, 

 trawlers and longline vessels; and folks 

 out for a pretty day's ride in a skiff. And 

 safe passage over Oregon Inlet via the 

 high-rise bridge is the primary access to 

 Cape Hatteras National Seashore. Each 

 year nearly 175,000 vehicles cross 

 Bonner Bridge, and the money spent at 

 campgrounds, restaurants and rental 

 property on the Outer Banks helps keep 

 local families afloat through the deserted 

 winters and put kids from Avon and 

 Buxton through college. 



Yet few since Midgett have under- 

 stood so clearly the volatile nature of this 

 channel. Like all its kin, Oregon Inlet 

 changes shape and 



Elizabeth 

 City. 



Edenton 



^ Plymouth 



Albemarle Sound 



Bodie 

 Island 



Kill Devil 

 » Hills 



Manteo 



Q Oregon 

 Intel 

 Proposed 



Shoaling waters forced the U.S. Coast Guard to abandon this historic station, 

 now marooned on a sandy plain. 



position as wind, 

 tide and storm 

 eternally sculpt the 

 barrier islands. Just 

 after Midgett' s 

 miserable day, the 

 inlet was less than 

 60 feet wide, but 

 four months later it 

 had widened to 321 

 feet at low tide, and 

 by 1909 the inlet 

 had expanded to 

 2,500 feet, approxi- 

 mating its current 

 size. And it has consistently 

 migrated south. As ocean 

 currents move down the 

 beach, they carry sand, 

 transporting sediments in a 

 general north-to-south 

 direction. The northern side 

 of Oregon Inlet migrates 

 southward, while the southern 

 side retreats. Today the inlet 

 lies two miles from its 

 original location, and its 

 southward movement 

 continues. 



For most of Oregon 

 Inlet's existence, its vicissi- 

 tudes were of minor concern, 

 but a new era began in the 

 1950s when the Corps of 



Continued 



COASTWATCH 9 



