Hurricanes and coastal development

A false-color satellite image of Hurricane Floyd about to make landfall in North Carolina, September 14, 1999. (From NOAA. More about the photograph)

North Carolina’s location at the eastern end of the southeastern U.S. coastline makes it a frequent site of hurricane landfalls. These landfalls are a regular feature of the state’s climate, as they are a natural outcome of the its proximity to the most frequent path of hurricanes.

Hurricanes form in the tropics and move northward, most commonly along a curved path around an area of high atmospheric pressure centered over Bermuda called the Bermuda High. Hurricanes following this path have a good chance of making landfall in North Carolina, as the point most frequently visited by hurricanes in the entire north Atlantic is only 20 miles off Cape Hatteras. The state has seen the landfall of so many hurricanes that prize-winning books have been written about it. Interested readers should see Jay Barnes’ 1998 book entitled North Carolina’s Hurricane History published by UNC Press.

The natural coastline of the state weathers these storms reasonably well, because the geological and biological processes that characterize the coast have developed under their influence. Man-made coastal structures, however, do not share the long evolutionary history of nature, and so hurricane landfalls cause millions of dollars of damage to roads, buildings, and other built infrastructure along our coast. Water, sewer, and electrical distribution systems are usually hardest hit.

This field trip will show you both natural shoreline changes that occur when hurricanes come ashore and the damaging impact these changes have on man-made structures. We will visit places where recent damage has been great and others where it has been small, so that you can see how different building practices influence the extent of damage.

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