Carolina Environmental Diversity Explorations

Hurricanes on sandy shorelines · By Dirk Frankenberg

Houses set back from the shoreline

Floyd Damage on Oak Island

Figure 10. Houses set back from the shoreline were spared the hurricane's wrath. (Photograph by the author. More about the photograph)

Figure 10 shows another view of the Oak Island beach after Floyd. The beach here looks much like it did before the hurricane. The only real evidence of damage is the modest cliff formed at the front of the dunefield. There is no evidence of damage to shorefront houses because they were built with a several hundred foot setback from the average high tide line. As a result, they were safe from the destructive force of the hurricane storm surge.

Definitions

hurricane n.
A severe tropical cyclone originating in the equatorial regions of the Atlantic Ocean or Caribbean Sea or eastern regions of the Pacific Ocean, traveling north, northwest, or northeast from its point of origin, and usually involving heavy rains and has surface wind speeds greater than 74 miles (or 119 kilometers) per hour. [more]
storm surge n.
Water that is pushed toward the shore by the force of the winds swirling around a storm. [more]