HURRICANE FRAN 



N GREEN 



hen Hurricane Fran slammed onto 

 Topsail Island in September 1 996, it destroyed 

 the Medlin famil/s fishing pier, two restaurants 

 and a motel. 



"It was the worst storm to hit the area since 

 Hurricane Hazel," says Doug Medlin, the owner of 

 the Fishing Village in Surf City. 'There was so much 

 damage that we didn't rebuild the facilities." 



Instead, Medlin tore down the old one-story 

 building where the Fishing Village now stands and 

 built a two-story structure that houses a tackle 

 shop, clothing stores, a surf shop and a real estate 

 office. 



The toll of Fran's fury was high for many 

 others along North Carolina's southern coast: 

 More than $5 billion dollars in damage; miles of 

 beach sand and dunes sucked from the shoreline; 

 and emotional scars that will last a lifetime. 



After a 30-year reprieve from major 

 hurricanes, the people of coastal and eastern North 

 Carolina were given a first-hand lesson in hurricane 

 dynamics. 



The Category 3 storm made landfall north of 

 Bald Head Island on Sept. 5, 1 996, and continued 

 its path on Sept. 6 — only a few weeks after 

 Hurricane Bertha hit Pender and Onslow counties. 

 Fran's course took it inland up the Cape Fear River, 

 west of I-40 into the heart of the Triangle. 



"On Topsail Island, there were homes 

 that floated away," says Pender County Sheriff 

 Carson Smith, who was director of Pender County 

 Emergency Management in 1 996. "One house was 

 sitting in the marsh between Topsail Beach and 

 Hampstead." 



Although many homes and businesses were 

 lost, the rebuilding began in the months after 

 the storm. Now, almost 1 years after the storm, 

 the coastal population has increased, as has the 

 number of businesses. 



In Pender County, there are close to 20,000 

 more people on the island, according to Eddie 

 King, current director of PenderCounty Emergency 

 Management. "After Fran, we decided to have 

 another shelter available during emergencies. This 



year, we are considering a fourth shelter." 



Many other changes have occured along the 

 North Carolina coast since Fran, including a new 

 beach insurance plan for coastal homeowners. 



What other lessons have researchers, 

 government officials and residents learned from 

 Fran? And how much have the beaches recovered? 



Beach dynamics are a complicated puzzle 

 of interacting elements — winds, waves, currents, 

 sand and geologic formations. The way these 

 elements fit together determines how a beach 

 responds during a hurricane, as well as how it 

 recovers after a storm. 



Wind transports fine grains of dry sand 

 above the wet beach. If these grains are halted by 

 vegetation or other obstructions, they pile up to 

 build dunes. 



Dunes art as reservoirs of sand that help to 

 buffer nearby structures and landscape from the 

 waves and surging waters during hurricanes and 

 other major storms. 



"Unfortunately, a myth has evolved that 

 sand dunes are a cure for all types of erosion," 

 Spencer Rogers and David Nash explain in 

 The Dune Book, a North Carolina Sea Grant 

 publication. 



"In the real-world, sand dunes are very poor 

 protection from long-term erosion, inlet changes 

 and even seasonal fluctuations in the beach," the 

 authors add. 



When it comes to storms, the more sand 

 between you and the ocean, the better, says 

 Rogers, North Carolina Sea Grant's coastal 

 construction and erosion specialist. But for some 

 beaches, sand was in short supply during the 

 summer of 1996. 



Southern coastal beaches — including the 

 towns ofTopsail Beach, Surf City, North Topsail 

 Beach and Kure Beach — received a one-two 

 punch with Bertha and Fran hitting close together. 



In July, Bertha had eaten away the berm and 

 took a bite out of the dunes. Large quantities of 



Continued 



Coastwatch I Early Summer 2006 I www.ncseagrant.org 



