BUXTON, N.C. (WAVY) — The incredible swells from Hurricane Erin brought flooding to many parts of Hatteras Island.
10 On Your Side could not physically travel there since part of NC-12 was still closed on Friday. Erin was gone in a flash, leaving much of the Outer Banks with a sunny Friday morning.
“Yeah, you would never know at all that there was a hurricane up here,” resident Scott Dawson said.
Dawson lives in Nags Head and commutes to Buxton every weekday to run the Lost Colony Museum. He grabbed a few irreplaceable items days before the storm flooded the museum parking lot.
“My grandmother lost a staircase and had all of her concrete busted up, which she just poured last year,” Dawson said.
Overwash was a big problem. Pictures from resident Wendi Munden show tidal flooding soar past the backyards of homes. She told 10 On Your Side that the tidal flooding got all the way back into her Diamond Shoals neighborhood. They have not witnessed that since Hurricane Emily in 1993. Thankfully, the damage from Erin does not hold a candle to Emily.
“Fully expected us to lose a couple of houses, things like that,” Munden said. “Thankfully that has not happened. If this storm was closer, I would have expected to have ocean water under my house, which is something I never would have imagined.”
We spoke with Munden over the phone since reception is still spotty out there. Internet and water services are knocked out. Power was recently restored. What they did lose was a large amount of their oceanfront land.
“Every home, oceanfront, semi-oceanfront and even further back has gotten a lot worse than what we would have expected,” Munden said.
There is still plenty of overwash along NC-12 as crews diligently work to clear it up. Those who commute to and from are losing out on about a week of business during tourism season.
“Losing a week of business is the least of the problems. EMS can’t take anybody to a hospital either when a road closes,” Dawson said. “There’s a lot of risk involved.”
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