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Danielle Levin
The Impact of Sea Level Rise on The Outer Banks
The climate now is very different than it was a century ago, just as the climate a century
from now will be very different than today. Over the past hundred years, our oceans have risen
by seven inches. By the year 2100, according to models based on thermal expansion and ice
melt, our oceans are expected to rise by thirty-nine inches. This is a dramatic increase in water
level that needs to be accounted for in future planning. A report titled Coastal Sensitivity to SeaLevel Rise, written by EPA project manager James G. Titus and his colleagues, states that
twenty-three out of the twenty-five most densely populated counties in the United States are
along a coast (Titus et al. 106). The rise in sea level poses a massive threat of destruction to
coastal cities’ ecosystems, beaches and infrastructure. One area where we see this looming issue
is the Outer Banks, North Carolina. In this state, policy makers recently passed a law in 2012
refuting a thirty-nine inch rise in sea level, predicted by a panel of scientists that advise North
Carolina’s Coastal Resources Commission, by the year 2100. The rejection of the thirty-nine
inch (one meter) sea level prediction means that North Carolina will not be adequately prepared
for the impending sea level rise. This is an immense issue because if the sea overpowers the land,
the Outer Banks could be submerged under the sea. There’s not much dispute these days among
scientists as to whether or not the ocean is rising. The pressing issue of the imminent sea level
rise in North Carolina’s Outer Banks needs to be dealt with sooner rather than later, by
considering solutions such as elevating homes and main roads, reducing carbon emissions,
building up sand dunes and constructing seawalls, so future generations don’t have to suffer
because of current inaction. The inevitable question North Carolina policy makers and residents
have to ask themselves is how much higher will the sea level rise and, therefore, how much more
destruction can everyone withstand?
According to the Environmental Protection Agency’s website on Rising Sea Level, this
significant increase in water levels can be attributed to melting glaciers and ice sheets, and a rise
in water temperatures (EPA). Journalist and author Bruce Henderson claims that because large
masses of ice are melting and temperatures are increasing, the water is rising three times as fast
on the North Carolina coast than it did a century ago (Henderson). The increase in water
temperature leads to an increase in water levels. This is because warmer water expands and takes
up more space, therefore causing the sea level to rise. Increasing water temperature not only
raises the sea level, but it also increases the severity of tropical storms, influences weather
patterns and impacts marine ecosystems. When glaciers or ice sheets melt, the melted ice
increases the amount water in the ocean. Depending on how much ice melts, this could be a large
or small effect on the sea level. For example, Bruce Henderson elaborates on his previous point
by saying that if significant chunks of Greenland and Antarctica ice masses melt, the sea level
could rise up to six feet by the year 2100 (Henderson). This statistic is terrifying—not only for
our civilization in general, but in particular for people who live in coastal areas. The areas that
will be most severely impacted due to sea level rise are the low-lying lands along the midAtlantic coast, specifically the Outer Banks.
Growing up, I have vivid memories traveling with my family to North Carolina’s Outer
Banks. My family has booked a summer beach house at the Outer Banks ever since I was seven
years old. Starting at six in the morning, we would begin the trek down to the beach with my
parents, sisters, cousins, aunts, uncles and grandparents. The road we would take to get to the
Outer Banks is named NC 12. It is the only two-lane highway that traverses North Carolina’s
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Outer Banks north to south, and the only way in and out of the banks. One year we had to
postpone our normal family beach vacation to mid-September—this was in 2011, the same year
that Hurricane Irene hit North Carolina. The traffic to cross the Wright Memorial Bridge (from
the mainland to the Outer Banks) lasted over six hours due to the hurricane-destroyed sections of
NC 12. Andrea Weigl and Joseph Neff, staff writers for News & Observer, reported that the
wind, rain and storm surge from Hurricane Irene ripped up sections of NC 12, isolating Cape
Hatteras and Ocracoke from the mainland (Weigl and Neff). In the northern neck of the Outer
Banks there were ample amounts of soundside flooding. They also reported that docks were
turned upside down, boats cluttered beachfronts and marsh grasses were carried 150 yards inland
(Weigl and Neff). I remember driving along the stretch of the Outer Banks, gasping at all of the
leftover debris and water damage from the storm, and wondering what could be done to prevent
this damage from happening again.
The destruction from Hurricane Irene wasn’t nearly as bad as it could have been, but
people’s lives were still negatively impacted. People living along North Carolina’s coast and on
the Outer Banks are accustomed to the floods, power outages and battering destruction caused by
hurricanes. They know what can happen to their communities, as proof from Irene and various
other hurricanes, and they know that it is the price they pay for living so close to the sea. One
storm in particular, the 1962 Ash Wednesday Storm, caused major destruction from North
Carolina to Long Island. John Seabrook, a staff writer at The New Yorker, recounts his traumatic
experience with the Ash Wednesday Storm stating that the storm lingered for five high tides and
was the worst storm to strike the east coast before Hurricane Sandy made landfall (Seabrook). He
claims that houses were bobbing in the waves and that after the storm the majority of natural
beachfronts had eroded away (Seabrook). People in North Carolina are aware that the sea level is
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rising quickly, just by looking at their environment each day, and it is rising especially fast in
“hot spots” like the Outer Banks. Kaid Benfield, a North Carolina native and director of
sustainable communities at the Natural Resource Defense Council (NRDC) in Washington, D.C.,
explains research that finds the “hot spot” of sea level rise along North Carolina’s coast can be
attributable to “localized variations in currents and land movements that change water
temperature, salinity and density” (Benfield). The sea’s “hot spot” along the Carolina coast is
rising at an accelerated rate, almost four times faster than it was in 1980. The menacing question
still stands: by how much will North Carolina’s sea level actually rise?
Policy makers in North Carolina have already semi-answered this dire question with the
implementation of an outrageous piece of legislation. Raleigh’s News & Observer transportation
columnist Bruce Siceloff reports that in 2012, “The General Assembly passed a law to put a
four-year moratorium on any stat rules, plan or policies based on expected changes in the sea
level,” after advocators of coastal development challenged the findings of the Science Panel’s
report that oceans will rise by thirty-nine inches in North Carolina by 2100 (Siceloff). Kaid
Benfield adds to this saying that the state’s legislature has banned public officials from looking
at sea level rise when preparing and making decisions for the future, until the year 2016
(Benfield). Essentially, this law outright ignored the fact that climate change is happening in
North Carolina. Climate reporter Jeff Spross affirms that the four current Republican candidates
running for Senate seat in North Carolina do not believe climate change is a fact (Spross).
Nothing will ever be accomplished in North Carolina regarding sea level rise if politicians don’t
even believe climate change is something to be considered.
This newly implemented law allowed the North Carolina Coastal Resources Commission
(CRC) to create a new sea-level prediction to serve as the foundation for state planners and
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regulators. Bruce Siceloff states that this group, called NC-20, favors a rise of eight inches in sea
level by the year 2100 (Siceloff). Policy makers ignorantly refused to further research the data
presented to them pertaining to the aforementioned thirty-nine inch sea level rise, and chose
rather to accept the eight-inch report. Lecturer and director at Duke University, Alexander Glass,
and author and Professor at Duke University, Orrin Pilkey, claim that NC-20 forced the North
Carolina legislature to conform to anti-global-warming arguments and back up the dubious
evidence of a sea level rise of eight inches predicted by so-called scientific experts (Glass and
Pilkey). Bruce Siceloff believes that one reason behind NC-20’s immediate attack on the thirtynine inch sea level rise prediction was due to state and federal officials “pressing local
governments to respond with expensive measures that would restrict economic development and
burden taxpayers needlessly” (Siceloff). Bill Chameides provides an additional reason for the
backlash: NC-20 is being driven by coastal developers who fear that state polices based on such
a high level of sea rise would destroy their plans to build new hotels, communities and so on
(Chameides). Either way, NC-20’s reasoning for convincing North Carolina’s legislature to
approve the four-year moratorium is absolute nonsense. The fact that they felt threatened by the
inundation of requests to help save North Carolina from sea level rise and were driven by coastal
developers’ economic hysteria is absurd.
Due to this new legislation, North Carolina will now be accounting for a future sea level
rise of less than one foot, when in actuality it is a sea level rise of about three to four feet
(Chameides). There is a great difference between less than one foot and three feet of water, and
the mass of leftover water will be unaccounted for. Currently, the main issue at hand is the delay
in building structures to combat this sea level rise. By postponing to 2016 any actions dealing
with sea level rise, instead of facing them now when they can be dealt with, more people are
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going to be put at risk and the effects of the sea level rise will be exacerbated. New York Times
reporter Justin Gillis states that if the sea level were going to rise several feet within a few
thousand years, humans would have time to develop combative technology, reinforce major
cities and retreat inward from beachfront properties (Gillis). Unfortunately, Gillis says, this is
inaccurate because evidence instead points to the sea level rising several feet per century (Gillis).
Without future development plans based on the predicted rise in sea level, developers are going
to increase the amount of houses they build near the ocean and additional roads/highways are
going to be built veering off towards the sea, but these new houses and roads aren’t going to be
as elevated or protected as they need to be when the water rises.
If the sea level does in fact rise to thirty-nine inches, this would radically redefine North
Carolina’s coast. The coast was previously naturally sculpted by the sea to contain the sounds
and barrier islands it does now. The barrier islands of the Outer Banks are North Carolina’s first
line of defense. Writer and editor for Endeavors magazine at the University of North Carolina at
Chapel Hill, Margarite Nathe explains that when tropical storms and hurricanes come, the islands
take the brunt of the hit by absorbing the energy from waves, reducing flooding, and protecting
estuaries (Nathe). If the coast were to be dramatically reshaped—which is already constantly
shifting—thousands of homes, businesses and wetlands would be impacted and likely destroyed.
Bruce Henderson reaffirms Margarite Nathe’s point by stating that the increased water level
would submerge the majority of the Outer Banks, leaving Avon, Buxton and Ocracoke as the
only towns reachable by boat (Henderson). The increased coastal erosion and severity of tropical
storms would become too powerful for humans to control.
Bruce Siceloff explains that the rise in water level would also move shorelines inland and
flood approximately 2,000 square miles of the Outer Banks, significantly harming North
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Carolina’s economy (Siceloff). Bill Chameides adds to these realities by stating that the flooding
would be unstoppable considering roughly 2,250 square miles of North Carolina’s coastal plain
is only five feet or less above sea level, and much of the Outer Banks is only three feet or less
above sea level (Chameides). Because the land is extremely low-lying on the Outer Banks, even
a slight increase in the sea level would spread far inland and cause vast amounts of destruction.
Bruce Henderson notes that severe flooding and damage would add billions of dollars in losses
to the state’s economy because tourism, farming and other local businesses would be forced to
shut down (Henderson). He also explains that the sounds and wetlands would turn into open
saltwater, which would hurt the marine species that inhabit those areas and in turn hurt the
humans that consume the aforementioned seafood (Henderson). The Outer Banks and the coastal
plain are highly overdeveloped on lower elevations, and this poses a huge risk for North
Carolina’s economy if they become submerged.
However, there are people who recognize the significant threat sea level rise poses to the
Outer Banks. They have taken the necessary measures to discuss various ways to combat sea
level rise and protect their homes. One of the most widely agreed upon measures is to build
houses at higher elevations. Currently, Bruce Siceloff reports, about half of North Carolina’s
coastal communities in flood zones require homes to be elevated two or three feet above the
minimum requirement (Siceloff). This additional height requirement is known as freeboard. It
gives homeowners a significant flood insurance premium discount and it provides extra
protection to their home. Environment & Energy Publishing (E&E) staff reporter Elizabeth
Harball states that without an accurate sea level rise prediction, it is very difficult for coastal
builders to determine universal freeboard heights for construction (Harball). If there is no
common height regulation, developers will continue to build houses lower to the ground as it
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costs them less money. In addition to elevating houses, roads are beginning to be elevated as
well. Bruce Henderson reports that state transportation engineer Ted Devens widened U.S. 64
across the Albemarle-Pamlico Peninsula and raised the foundation of the road by a foot
(Henderson). This elevation, even by a foot, will allow for the rising sea level to not destroy the
road as much as it would have if it were flat at ground level.
Another measure that North Carolina can take to prevent its coast from being inundated
by waves can be seen in the actions of New Jersey and New York. In New Jersey, they recently
implemented “the Project”. John Seabrook explained that this project widened the beach at
Harvey Cedars and created sand dunes twenty-two feet above sea level (Seabrook). He continued
to say the operation required over 2.7 million cubic yards of sand and twenty-six million dollars,
but would be worth it in the long run (Seabrook). He also stated that when waves of over twentytwo feet (the estimated height of waves in a century) come crashing into the coast, the sand
dunes would act as a wall. The end goal is that the sand dunes would be washed away by the
storm instead of the houses. When Hurricane Sandy hit, towns that had the Project weathered the
storm with minimal damage, whereas towns without the Project were severely damaged
(Seabrook). Additionally, on New York’s Staten Island, they created a five-point plan. Author
and The New Yorker staff writer Ian Frazier stated that the plan consists of five points to better
prepare for increased sea level and severity of storms (Frazier). He explained that the first two
points deal with the dunes: first, protect the natural barriers already in place and, second, build
them up to protect against larger storm surges (Frazier). The natural barriers are the sand dunes
already on the beaches. The three remaining points are to rezone in the flood areas, reengineer
intelligently and educate people about their risk in terms of flooding (Frazier). Building up the
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beach by increasing the size of the dunes is not only an environmentally friendly way to combat
the rise in sea level, but it’s also a proven success.
While the Outer Banks and other coastal areas contemplate defensive actions to shore up
their at risk communities, a measure to truly make an impact on climate change, and reduce the
rise in sea level, would be to significantly cut carbon emissions. One of the key underlying issues
for the rise in sea level is the increased amount of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere. Excess
carbon makes our planet warmer, which in turn melts glacial ice and expands water molecules at
a faster rate. This is not only an issue for the Outer Banks, or for the coastal communities of New
Jersey and New York, but also an issue of global ramifications. The documentary The Island
President, by Jon Shenk, discusses the impact sea level rise would have on the Maldives and
demonstrates what measures their President, Mohamed Nasheed, had to take in order to keep the
Maldives above water (The Island President). The main issue the President of the Maldives
attempts to tackle is the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Science and medical writer
Becky Oskin reports that a reduction in the amount of carbon emissions would reduce Earth’s
increasing temperatures, therefore decreasing the rate at which the expansion of water occurs and
the rate at which glacial ice melts (Oskin). This is a daunting task to undertake, as the President
of the Maldives can reaffirm, but its results can payoff substantially in the long term.
A controversial solution that states other than North Carolina are taking to prevent the
rise in sea level is to construct seawalls. Margarite Nathe claims that even though seawalls can
temporarily protect coastal communities, in the long term they end up causing more issues than
they solve (Nathe). The reason for this is that when seawalls are implemented they take away the
sand that forms the foundation of the beach. This creates a huge structural loss for the land. She
further elaborates on her previous claim by saying when the sea level rises over the wall, or
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ruptures it, the land will be taken over by the waves and storm surge because the protection of
the beach has been scoured away (Nathe). For this reason, North Carolina doesn’t allow seawalls
by law.
However, none of these precautionary measures will be of any importance unless North
Carolina politicians recognize that sea level rise is an issue that needs immediate attention. The
Outer Banks is more than just a string of islands—it’s a home. It is an oasis for marine life and
for humans, equating to fun in the sun for homeowners and vacationers, and big bucks for
businesses. I’ve been blessed with the most delightful, lifelong memories from spending my
summers on the Outer Banks. I want to share my love of the ocean with my children, and my
children’s children. Tackling the rise in sea level is possible and there are definitive steps we can
take now to reverse the trend of sea rise and prepare for the seemingly inevitable. However, if we
let the North Carolina legislature base their future sea level rise policies off of unreliable and
ignorant predictions, the Outer Banks will face continual, irreversible damage and drown in the
dismal waters of what could otherwise have been planned for and evaded.
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Works Cited
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Chameides, Bill. “Climate Change: North Carolinians Hope to Stop It in Its Tracks.”
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