Outer Banks beach widening projects to cost a record $99 million in 2022

Outer Banks communities from Duck to Buxton will bolster their beaches yet again, this time with a $99 million price tag, the most ever spent on the Dare County coast in one year.

Revenues from town tax districts, federal and state help and levies on lodging are barely keeping up with the cost of preventing the beaches from shrinking.

Hurricanes like Dorian and Florence do their damage, but even relatively minor storms push the ocean over the dunes to flood neighborhoods and wash over N.C. 12. Hurricane Teddy passed hundreds of miles offshore last fall and still sent large waves pounding the coastline.

Sand deposits bury parking lots and block the highway. Afterward, the beaches are so narrow that waves at high tide lap at the doorsteps of oceanfront homes.

“The water doesn’t have anywhere to go anymore,” said Dare County commissioner Danny Couch.

Most Outer Banks towns completed beach widening projects in 2017, but storms keep stealing the sand again.

Dare County plans to rebuild two miles of beach in the village of Avon for $11 million. It will be the first beach widening project there.

Storm surges batter homes along Ocean View Drive — the road that runs parallel to the ocean in Avon — pushing water over lawns and making driveways and streets look like rivers. Water flows westward up the short side streets to flood N.C. 12, often causing the road to close. When it doesn’t, motorists roll through several inches of salt water, leaving a wake behind them.

Dare County expects to set up a tax district, charging an extra 40 cents per $100 of value on homes on the oceanside of N.C. 12, except for a section north of Due East Road where erosion is not bad, County Manager Bobby Outten said.

The rest of the properties in town will be charged an additional 10 cent tax.

“I’ve had some pushback,” said Couch, who represents Hatteras Island including Avon. “So far it’s not been contentious, for the most part.”

County officials plan to discuss the issue with community members virtually in February. But officials have said there is no other way to finance Avon’s beach project.

“This is our economic engine,” Bob Woodard, chairman of the Dare County Board of Commissioners said in a meeting last month. “Everybody has got to have skin in the game no matter what side of the highway you’re on.”

The county also plans to widen three miles of beach in Buxton at a cost of $19 million. FEMA is paying part of the cost to help with sand losses from Dorian.

Nags Head is planning to replenish 10 miles of its beaches in 2022 at a cost of $26 million. Delays could move it to the next year, said Mayor Ben Cahoon. The project also replaces sand lost during Dorian, just two years after the town widened the same 10-mile stretch. FEMA is expected to help pay the cost.

Duck, Southern Shores, Kitty Hawk, Kill Devil Hills plan to work together with Dare County to widen another 12 miles or so of shoreline at a cost of about $43 million. It’s part of a plan to maintain their beaches by adding sand every five years. The towns did projects in 2017.

The $99 million total is the most ever spent in one year on the Outer Banks coastline, according to a beach nourishment database kept by the Program for the Study of Developed Shorelines at Western Carolina University.

“What happens when you can’t afford to keep those beaches in place anymore?” said Rob Young, director of the program. “There will come a point where it will become so darn expensive they’re not going to want to do it anymore.”

The county raises $10 million annually for a beach nourishment fund using part of occupancy taxes charged from lodging. The fund pays for roughly half the cost of each town’s project.

Last year, the towns and the county received $1.4 million from the state for beach widening, Outten said.

The towns have also created tax districts specifically for their beaches.

The Outer Banks does have offshore sand bars that communities use to help replenish the beaches, but the demand for sand will increase as erosion worsens, Young said. And the cost to build up the beaches is only going to get higher.

Young supports the unpopular strategy of retreat from areas where the beach erodes quickly, he said. Then, communities would not waste money on unsustainable places. Homes could be bought with public money and removed, he said.

No one wants to give up on multimillion properties or N.C. 12, the highway that helps drive the tourism industry of roughly $2 billion annually, Outten said.

“Is there going to be a time when there’s not going to be enough sand or enough money?” Outten said. “That could be, but it’s not this year and it’s not the next five years. You can’t just tell people tough luck.”

Jeff Hampton, 757-446-2090, jeff.hampton@pilotonline.com