Editor’s Note: Tabb’s Trails is a commentary photo-essay series with coastal reporter, photographer and hiking enthusiast Kip Tabb.

Driving along N.C. 12 Saturday, Oct. 18, it becomes quickly obvious that a nor’easter recently blew across the Outer Banks.

Traffic has stopped twice in the 4.5 miles to clear the road of sand and ocean overwash between the south end of the Basnight Bridge and the Pea Island National Wildlife Refuge Visitor Center, where a birding trip was scheduled as part of the 2025 Wings Over Water Wildlife Festival held Oct. 14-19. The trip, along with several others on federally managed lands, were canceled or modified because of the government shutdown that began Oct. 1 and continued at the time of this publication.

North Carolina Department of Transportation crews are hard at work, rebuilding the sand dune, but the evidence of the storms that had battered coastal North Carolina cannot be missed.

Standing water from overwash still covers the road in places. Sand on the roadway forces drivers to slow down even when there is no stoplight controlling traffic. Some dunes show clear signs of the waves that ran over them, their sand a darker color and more compact that dunes to the north and south.

Yet nature will abide, and at the visitor center, the North Pond is filled with images that no camera can truly capture. A flock of 200 or 300 northern pintail 150 or 200 yards long seems to be paddling effortlessly from the south to the north.

There are songbirds in the trees and foliage, and a yellow-rumped warbler darts by, too quick for the camera to focus. It’s a bird that is almost never seen in the summer in northeastern North Carolina but it is ubiquitous in the fall and winter.

As it turns out, it was a remarkable day on the half-mile North Pond Wildlife Trail that begins behind the visitor center, with rarely seen species making an appearance and migratory waterfowl filling the waters of the pond with color and sound.

Saturday marks the 129th anniversary of one of the most daring ocean rescues in the history of the U.S. Life-Saving Service, the predecessor to today’s Coast Guard.

On Oct. 11, 1896, during hurricane conditions and in the darkness of the night, Keeper Richard Etheridge and the all-Black surfmen crew he commanded at the Pea Island Life-Saving Station — Benjamin Bowser, Dorman Pugh, Theodore Meekins, Lewis Wescott, Stanley Wise and William Irving — saved all onboard the shipwrecked E.S. Newman.

Among the survivors were the captain, his wife and 3-year-old son, and six others.

At the time of the rescue, its depiction was limited to just a short paragraph in some news sources. There was no mention of an all-Black crew having performed the rescue. While now many more are aware of the heroic rescue, the story is still not widely known. Today is a special time to remember it, and to think about the history the Pea Island station represents.

Before selected to take command of the Pea Island station in January 1880, Etheridge had served as the lowest-ranked surfmen at a neighboring station. After he assumed command, and throughout the period the station was active, it was staffed primarily with Black commanders and all-Black surfmen crews, long after Etheridge’s death in May 1900.

In 1949 the Pea Island station was decommissioned, but it had been deactivated a couple of years earlier. In March 1947, my father, Herbert M. Collins, the last left in charge, locked the station’s doors for the last time and turned in the keys to his superiors.

Perhaps just as remarkable as an “all-Black” surfmen crew working on the North Carolina coast decades ago is that Etheridge, the first Black or African American to command the Pea Island station, grew up enslaved. Before being selected, he had also served with the 36th Regiment of U.S. Colored Troops during the Civil War, helping the Union to free thousands who were once enslaved.

The family history of many who served at the Pea Island, like that of my own father, is also tied to the story of the enslaved. Likewise, the family history of many who served at Pea Island, like my father and other family members who served there, is also tied to the Native American, Algonquian-speaking tribes who once lived along the coast. In fact, although most known for being the first Black or African American to command the station, it is noteworthy that in a 1932 Coast Guard magazine article written by Rodney J. Benson and currently available online, Etheridge was described as being “part Indian.”

The 1932 article asserts the “Pea Island station never had a pure strain negro keeper, white or Indian blood having blended with the African strain.” The article is one of, if not the earliest written mention, as it describes, of “checkerboard-ed” crews, a term used to identify stations with both white and Black crewmembers. It is also reflective of a period when people who served at lifesaving stations along the North Carolina coast were categorized racially in one of two ways, either being white or Black, to determine their status and rights, no matter their racial mix.

The 100-year delay the Gold Lifesaving Medal was finally awarded to the Pea Island crew is a reminder of the challenges and obstacles men who were known as being “Black” in U.S. Life-Saving stations and the early Coast Guard faced. Yet, as the unjustified delay teaches, still many bravely and honorably served.

Etheridge’s selection as keeper in January 1880 made him, as is described on the Coast Guard webpage, “the first African American station keeper in the service and first minority member of any kind to command a U.S. base of operations.” Likewise, at the time of my father’s death in 2010, he was described in a Coast Guard press release as a “Coast Guard Legend,” and especially “in light of the challenges that African Americans faced” during the era he served.

After Etheridge’s selection, and until my father locked the doors for the last time, the Pea Island station was known as being one of the best on the coast.

Perhaps as remarkable as the heroic rescue of the shipwrecked E.S Newman, is the incredible 67-year period the Pea Island station was staffed primarily with Black commanders and crews, especially given the political and social climate at the time. These men faced incredible obstacles. This included serving during the Wilmington, North Carolina massacre and the Jim Crow era in the South.

Having researched and studied the history of the Pea Island station for well over 10 years now, when speaking of it I say that today I understand the smile on my father’s face as he opened the doors of Pea Island Cookhouse Museum to the public for the first time. Likewise, today I better understand the tears William Charles Bowser, his cousin, and who had served at the station before him, displayed when he first learned the Coast Guard’s highest honor, the Gold Lifesaving Medal, would be awarded to Etheridge and his crew.

The anniversary of the Oct. 11, 1896, rescue of nine onboard the shipwrecked schooner, the E.S. Newman, is an important reminder of this history. It is also important to remember the brave men at Pea Island are credited with performing some 600 rescues.

The Pea Island Cookhouse Museum on Roanoke Island is dedicated to honoring their service and legacy. Presently the museum is open for group tours by appointment only. To make an appointment for a group visit, contact the Pea Island Preservation Society, Inc., otherwise known as PIPSI, by email at: friends@peaislandpreservationsociety.com

Part of a series about the effects federal budget and staff cuts and the cancellations of programs and services are having in coastal North Carolina.

MANTEO — In the six months since the chaotic and seemingly random cutting in the federal government began, a terrible uneasiness has descended on the northeast corner of North Carolina, where all of the state’s nine national wildlife refuges employ neighbors and family members who live in the rural communities in which they’re located.

At least 10 Coastal North Carolina National Wildlife Refuge Complex staff and five employees of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s regional Ecological Services office in Raleigh, so far, are believed to have voluntarily left their jobs, whether nudged by coercion or incentives.

With staff forbidden to speak with media, and ongoing legal challenges and limited public information creating uncertainty, no one appears to know what will happen to their refuges.

“I just found out we should be getting some staffing numbers from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in the next couple of weeks,” Howard Phillips, the Southeastern representative for the National Wildlife Refuge Association, a nonprofit advocacy and support group for the refuges, told Coastal Review, citing informed but unofficial sources. “The dust seems to be settling a little and (the agency) is starting to get a handle on where they stand.”

But Phillips, who retired at the end of 2020 as manager of Pocosin Lakes National Wildlife Refuge in Tyrrell County, says he fears that serious consequences are already baked into the refuges’ cake, no matter what the government decides to do. The lack of trust engendered by often abrupt, unexplained cuts of staff, research and budgets as well as the “crippling” brain drain of expertise, experience and local knowledge has only made the situation more problematic.

“Could the administration suddenly decide they want to hire everybody back and start doing conservation again?” he continued. “That would take at least six months, probably 12 months. They’d have to be trained.”

The stark reality, he added, is that without knowing the Trump administration’s timeline or goal in the current upheaval, it’s impossible to understand the long-term impacts and impractical to expect much to change, much less improve.

“I mean, they’ve just given no indication that they’re going to do anything that’s going to reverse the trend right now, which is down, down, down, down,” Phillips said.

An unnamed spokesperson from the agency’s public affairs office ignored Coastal Review’s request to authorize or facilitate a refuge staff interview, but responded to several questions about impacts on North Carolina’s wildlife refuges in a May 23 email.

“As part of the broader efforts led by the Department of the Interior under President Trump’s leadership, we are implementing necessary reforms to ensure fiscal responsibility, operational efficiency, and government accountability,” the spokesperson wrote. “While we do not comment on personnel matters, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service remains committed to fulfilling our mission of conserving fish, wildlife, and natural resources for the American people.” 

Refuges in the coastal complex encompass nearly a half-million acres of farmlands, swamp forests and pocosin peatlands, intersected by rivers, streams, canals, lakes and sounds within the nation’s second-largest estuarine system.

The nine refuges — Alligator River, Pea Island, Mackay Island, Currituck, Mattamuskeet, Pocosin Lakes, Cedar Island, Swan Quarter, Roanoke River — are stretched along vast swaths of geography in the coastal plain that provide habitat for unique species and globally important ecosystems.

For instance, the critically endangered wild red wolves, the only surviving in the world, roam within a five-county recovery area based out of Alligator River, descendants of Spanish mustangs range free in Currituck, and thousands of migratory birds and waterfowl passing along the Atlantic Flyway overwinter every year at Mattamuskeet and Pocosin Lakes.

Mattamuskeet, the state’s largest natural lake, is undergoing an innovative and intensive watershed restoration project many years in the planning. And Pocosin Lakes, named for the Native American term for “swamp on hill” because of its boggy peat soil, has been studied by Duke University researchers for its ability to remediate carbon pollution. The refuge has also nearly completed an extensive rewetting project to restore the ability of the pocosin peat to absorb carbon dioxide and resist wildfires.

Two major wildfires in and around the refuge in recent decades have burned deep in the ground for many weeks, spewing tons of carbon back into the environment, with one smoldering for six months before it was finally extinguished.

Therein lies the dilemma — and the risk — to the refuges: What happens when there’s no one available to take proper care of the refuges, and to even continue the conservation mission?

Pocosin Lakes, for instance, with the recent retirement of former manager Wendy Stanton, no longer has a refuge manager.

“You know, with Wendy gone now, I don’t know that there’s anybody left at Pocosin Lakes that really understands that hydrology restoration and how it works,” Phillips said.

But it’s more than the upper-level staff, said Bonnie Strawser, president of the Coastal Wildlife Refuge Society, a local nonprofit group that supports all of the eastern North Carolina refuges. It’s also the loss of staff that maintain buildings and trails, she said, as well as the biologists who monitor water and test soil.

Strawser, who retired in 2020 after 40 years with Fish and Wildlife as visitor services manager, said that the project leader for Coastal North Carolina National Wildlife Refuge Rebekah Martin has designated acting managers in each refuge, but that’s in addition to their regular jobs with the refuges.

Martin is based at the agency’s Roanoke Island headquarters but is not authorized to speak to reporters. According to a 2023 article on the coastal refuges website, Martin oversees about 400,000 acres of habitat with more than a dozen endangered or threatened species. At the time, it said, the complex had 35 employees and more than 400 volunteers.

“We are currently down to 10 staff, and this is regular O and M — operations and maintenance — funded by general funding, refuge funding,” Strawser said in a recent interview. “Now that does not include firefighters or law enforcement, because they are funded through different programs.”

Strawser said that there were no probationary employees in eastern North Carolina, so no one had been outright fired. Some staff who agreed to resign under one of the agency’s two rounds of the deferred resignation program, she said, were quickly shut down and put on administrative leave for varied periods of time while collecting their salaries.

Cuts in both the U.S. Forest Service and Fish and Wildlife Service will also hamper the agencies cooperative response to wildfires and disasters, including with the national interagency incident management teams. Strawser is a member of one of three teams in the southern area.

“I don’t know what in the world we’re going to do when fire season comes,” she said. “They stood down our team. It’s not going to be available, they said, at least until after July.”

As Strawser noted, a lot goes on behind the scenes to keep the refuges humming, including procedural processes to keep records and run programs, as well as have sponsors to maintain the “casual hire” personnel to respond to emergencies.

“But the Fish and Wildlife Service, because they lost so many people in the administrative positions, they don’t have anybody to handle the payments and the travel, so they can’t sponsor” for a team member, she said.

For the time being, the public many not notice much difference when they go to a refuge, Strawser said.

“The visitor centers are run by volunteers,” she said. “The public programs are conducted mostly by volunteers.” But there’s only three maintenance people for their nine national wildlife refuges.

“There’s been no talk of closing anything, but it’s just common sense there will problems if there’s nobody to grade the roads, if there’s nobody to do the mowing on the road shoulders, she said. “And if there’s no ‘daylighting’ of the roads, they’ll get overgrown, the sun won’t reach down, and the mud doesn’t dry out and the road is destabilized and before you know it, they’re not drivable.”

Mike Bryant, who was succeeded by Martin, had served as refuge manager for 20 years, from 1996 to 2016, and he witnessed decreasing support for the refuges from the federal government, he told Coastal Review in an interview. After retirement, he had also served as consultant for the National Wildlife Refuge Association, and was former president of the Coastal Wildlife Refuge Society. Although he said he keeps in touch, he is no longer directly involved with either group.

Since about 2010, Bryant said there has been a steady decline in staffing.

“You have refuges where there were multiple people, and with some of them, there’s just one person left, and so that’s part of the story,” he said. “So it had nothing to do with the past 60 or 90 days, whatever it is now.”

But it’s not just mandated reductions in staff that threaten the refuges, he said. The management challenge is also an aging workforce that may not be replaced.

“You got over half a million acres of National Wildlife Refuge in multiple counties, and spanning across North Carolina to the Virginia border, with all kinds of infrastructure and management mandates and no staff to get those mandates done,” Bryant said. “They’re just wondering, how are we going to meet our responsibilities if we’re the only ones left? It’s a morale buster.”

After being fully staffed around 2003, he said it seemed as if the Department of Interior stopped prioritizing conservation and Congress slowly began losing interest in supporting the refuges.

“The Fish and Wildlife budget has so many facets to it, so many other responsibilities under various laws, endangered species and ecological services and all these other entities within the agency, fisheries and all those things, are all important,” Bryant said. “But Congress was never convinced to budget specifically for operations and maintenance of national wildlife refuges.”

Meanwhile, scores of new refuges came on line in the last 25 years. And rather than hiring more personnel, more work was heaped on less staff.

“I was hired in 1996 to manage Alligator River and Pea Island,” Bryant said. “Two years later, when the manager left Mackey Island and Currituck refuges, the regional office called me and said, ‘Hey, we want you to manage those two.’ All of a sudden, I had four refuges.”

Two years later, he was told to hire and supervise a new manager at Pocosin Lakes. Then staff was reduced, forcing him to share staff between the refuges. Next, Roanoke River was added to his responsibilities — along with the 90-minute drive each way. During all those years, he was bumped up just one pay grade.

Bryant said he gets why people get frustrated with the inefficient, cumbersome aspects of the federal government. But he remembers back when the Clinton administration had reduced both staffing and regulations, and not only succeeded, but ended up with a balanced budget.

“We went through all of those things without ever feeling like the sky is falling,” he said. Rather than taking rational steps to achieve efficiency, the interest now seems more in “just destroying the government, constantly degrading it, and yes, crafting corruption.”

“There’s a few bad actors, no doubt, always, in every organization everywhere, no matter what the enterprise,” Bryant added. “There was a rational process to deal with bad employees, grounded in policy. And the policy was grounded in regulation, and the regulation was grounded in law.”

The first official unit of the National Wildlife Refuge System was Pelican Island in Florida, established for conservation in 1903 by President Theodore Roosevelt. Today there are 570 refuges and 30 wetland management districts on more than 150 million acres entrusted to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Services and enjoyed by 69 million visitors.

Bryant is rooting for not just survival of the struggling refuge system, but its revival.

“I think we’ll recover,” he said. “I’m optimistic about that. But we’ll be deeply scarred.”

RODANTHE – The North Carolina Department of Transportation is set to begin work Friday rebuilding dunes and placing sandbags on a severely erosion-threatened stretch of N.C. Highway 12 here.

Department officials are calling the $400,000 project on an 1,100-foot stretch of highway “a temporary solution to protect the highway from ocean overwash caused by extreme tides and storms.”

Officials said the project near the Pea Island National Wildlife Refuge visitor center is meant to mitigate the type of overwash that caused the highway to be closed for a period in mid-November. They said it would also add a layer of protection for the road itself, helping to prevent the type of undermining that could damage the pavement and cause a long-term shutdown of the only roadway link between the mainland and Hatteras Island.

“We know this is only a temporary fix,” said N.C. Department of Transportation Division Engineer Win Bridgers. “But it’s vital for us to do everything we can to keep N.C. 12 open and accessible while we seek a more permanent solution.”

The sandbag project will take about a week to complete, with alternating single-lane closures in the area while the work is ongoing.

The Coastal Resources Commission in December approved a variance from Coastal Area Management Act development rules to allow the sandbag placement.

The November storm had washed away 1,000 feet of dune and exposed the highway’s pavement high surf. Roadway flooding and pavement drop-off produced hazardous traffic conditions, prompting the temporary road closure.

The North Carolina Department of Transportation can begin work on a temporary solution to protect a stretch of N.C. Highway 12 in Rodanthe that frequently experiences overwash, coastal flooding and erosion — but NCDOT officials are looking for a more permanent fix.

Earlier this week, the Coastal Resources Commission unanimously approved NCDOT’s variance request to repair 1,300 feet of primary sand dune and install 1,100 feet of sandbags on the oceanside right-of-way near the visitor center for the Pea Island National Wildlife Refuge. A variance, once granted, allows coastal development that would otherwise be prohibited by commission rules.

“We hope to start the project sometime in mid-January, and it will take roughly one week to complete,” NCDOT Communications Officer Tim Hass told Coastal Review Tuesday. He said that during the project, which should cost about $400,000, there will be temporary single-lane closures in the area on N.C. Highway 12.

After a storm last month forced transportation officials to close N.C. 12 near the refuge’s visitor center, NCDOT submitted to Division of Coastal Management staff on Nov. 24 a request to modify the existing Coastal Area Management Act permit issued in 1999 that allows for maintenance work along the Outer Banks highway.

The division is under the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality and acts as staff to the commission. Division staff make permit decisions based on commission rules.

Division staff on Dec. 4 issued a modification to NCDOT’s existing CAMA major permit but “conditioned out those aspects of the proposed sandbag structure which did not meet the Commission’s Rules, including the size and color of the sandbags, the size of the sandbag structure, and the impacts to existing dunes,” documents state.

If the division denies a permit request because the proposed project is outside of development rules, the petitioner can request a variance from the commission to allow the work, which is what NCDOT did, leading to the special-called meeting held Monday morning by web conference.

NCDEQ Assistant General Counsel Christy Goebel explained that NCDOT owns and maintains the public right-of-way easement through Pea Island National Wildlife Refuge on Hatteras Island in Dare County.

“As we know, N.C. 12 provides the only roadway connection between the mainland and Hatteras Island. Beach erosion, dune loss and risk to Highway 12 have been particularly severe near the refuge visitor center,” she said.

The area has been identified as a “hot spot” since at least 2002 and is characterized by low topography and low elevations. The 2020 average annual erosion rate at the visitor center hot spot is 7.5 feet per a year, and the total width of the island there is between 3,500 and 5,800 feet, though much of that area is the refuge ponds. The space between the ocean and refuge ponds that N.C. 12 passes through is as narrow as 245 feet.

“Because of storm and tidal events, and the geomorphology of this area, the hot spot is susceptible to shoreline erosion, overwash, coastal flooding, the loss of beach and dunes, and sand cover. These circumstances can undermine the integrity of the road, making travel by the general public unsafe and forcing DOT to close the road,” Goebel said.

The Nov. 15-17 storm that severely damaged the primary dune along N.C. 12 by the refuge’s visitor center prompted NCDOT’s move to put in the temporary sandbag structure.

Goebel said that ocean overwash removed around 1,000 linear feet of dune, exposing the highway’s pavement edge to the high surf. Roadway flooding and pavement drop-off produced hazardous traffic conditions, and NCDOT temporarily closed the road to all traffic. NCDOT temporarily rebuilt the primary dune as maintenance work after the storm, under the existing CAMA permit.

Goebel said that NCDOT proposed using temporary sandbags for the project that would be white, trapezoid-shaped, woven polypropylene, an alternative to the traditional tan sandbags. Plans call for the sandbags to be placed in two adjoining rows parallel to the seashore.

The row closest to the ocean would be 6 feet high with an 8-foot base, and the row closest to land would be 4-foot high with a 6-foot base. The rows will be adjacent to each other and have a combined base of 14 feet. Both rows will be placed 2 feet below the roadway and 10 feet away from the pavement.

NCDOT plans to bring in sand to fill the sandbags and cover the sandbags after they are installed with a 6-foot-high and 20-foot-wide dune. “Sand would not be dredged from the swash zone on the beach, and there would be no wetland impacts,” Goebel said.

About 950 square feet of the protective dune will extend below the normal high-water line, as well.

Existing rules require the sandbags be tan, between 3 and 5 feet wide and 7 to 15 feet long when measured flat, with a base width no wider than 20 feet and total height no more than 6 feet. Rules also dictate that no primary dunes can be removed or located, and no part of the dune should be placed below normal high water line.

This type of sandbag has been granted variances twice before. The commission allowed for this type of sandbag to be used at the north end of Ocracoke Island, but that project didn’t come to fruition because of funding, and again in February 2022, for the north end of Rodanthe, she said.

Goebel said that division staff agrees with NCDOT “that construction of the sandbag structure and the dune and the use of the alternative bags will secure public safety and welfare, and it will preserve substantial justice as it will allow the petitioner to protect 12 in the short and midterm with alternative sandbags, while continuing to work towards a long-term solution for transportation along Hatteras Island.”

Special Deputy Attorney General Colin Justice reiterated to the commission that NCDOT officials believe there are benefits to using the alternative sandbags.

Justice, who represents NCDOT and works for the North Carolina Department of Justice, said officials believe these sandbags will be more durable. Installation will happen faster than traditional sandbags and cause less of an impact because of the way the bags are filled from the top. No hydraulic pump across the beach to fill traditional sandbags is necessary.

“We think that applying the rule strictly would prevent NCDOT from being able to do this repair as effectively, as quickly and for minimizing impacts the setback requirements,” he said.

The Division of Coastal Management’s NCDOT Project Coordinator Stephen Lane said Monday that NCDOT is looking at long-term solutions for the hot spot, and has obtained funds to study “long-term comprehensive solutions to try to keep Highway 12 open for the future,” he said.

Lane is referring to the $1.8 million grant announced earlier this year to study the 11-mile stretch of N.C. 12 between Oregon Inlet and Rodanthe on Pea Island. “The project will identify future construction projects, streamline environmental reviews, include public engagement and establish detailed, long-term plans for keeping the roadway passable during and following major storm events,” officials said in the at the time.

NCDOT Division 1 Engineer Win Bridgers states in the permit modification request dated Nov. 24 that the sandbag project is a temporary solution for maintaining N.C. 12 on the Pea Island refuge.

“NCDOT has recently been awarded a PROTECT Planning Grant from (Federal Highway Administration) to conduct a Planning and Environmental Linkages (PEL) study that includes comprehensive resiliency planning, alternatives development and evaluation, and robust public engagement for NC 12 on Pea Island,” Bridgers wrote. “Also known as Solving Access for NC 12 in Dare County (SAND), this project will establish a solid foundation for future project development and construction, with the goal of streamlining subsequent environmental review, accelerating project delivery, and securing the long-term resiliency of NC 12.”

He said that NCDOT anticipations the SAND project will determine short-term and long-term solutions for maintaining N.C. 12 on Pea Island National Wildlife Refuge.

“When those solutions are implemented, NCDOT would remove the temporary sandbags when no longer needed to protect the roadway of NC 12. With the stronger material and design, the Permashield bags can be more effectively removed when they are no longer needed. NCDOT anticipates quicker and more complete removal of Permashield sandbags as opposed to the challenging removal of traditional sandbags,” Bridgers said.

RODANTHE — Contractors on Monday continued to remove debris strewn along miles of Cape Hatteras National Seashore beaches following the collapse Friday evening of a multilevel, unoccupied beach house into the Atlantic.

No injuries were reported in connection with the collapse. Seashore officials have closed public entry to the beaches from the northern boundary of Rodanthe to the northern end of the 2.4-mile Rodanthe, or “jug handle,” bridge.

The 1,428 square-foot house at 23214 Corbina Drive was built in 1973. The four-bed, two-bath structure used as a vacation rental was sold in 2018 for $339,000, according to real estate websites.

This is the seventh structure since May 2020 to crumble into the ocean in the unincorporated community on Hatteras Island in Dare County.

Cape Hatteras seashore and Pea Island refuge teams coordinated with the owner of the house to manage cleanup, which began around 1 p.m. Saturday.

“The homeowner’s contractor continues to clean up the beach,” Seashore Public Affairs Specialist Mike Barber told Coastal Review Monday. “As of yesterday, debris was spotted approximately 11 miles north of the collapse site in Pea Island National Wildlife Refuge.”

Park officials said in an update Sunday that several other threatened structures in northern Rodanthe suffered “substantial damage” and they are communicating with the county on a detailed assessment of the associated debris and hazards.

“Coordination will occur between house owners, rental property management companies, and the Seashore once elevated surf conditions subside, and the full extent of damage is known,” officials said.

In Buxton, there is “ongoing erosion and elevated surf conditions” that have resulted in ocean overwash under many homes and into neighborhoods, as well.

“Hazardous debris, broken from beachfront houses, may be present on the beach and in the water. Seashore staff have observed evidence of compromised septic systems; therefore, the Seashore is advising that the public should not go in the water until follow up inspections are made,” officials added Sunday.

The National Park Service has devoted a webpage to the threatened oceanfront structures that border the seashore and action being taken.

A part of the visitor experience, the visitor center at the Pea Island National Wildlife Refuge had become increasingly at risk from storm surge and ocean overwash. Having opened in 1995, the harsh climate of the Outer Banks had made renovations, which were completed last year, a critical need.

The project completion was celebrated during a ribbon cutting Friday and unveiling of the visitor center’s new flooring, updated display and retail space and, perhaps most importantly, the structure’s new higher elevation 5 feet above ground.

Pea Island and Alligator National Wildlife Refuge Manager Scott Lanier described during his opening remarks the importance of elevating the building to help protect it.

“We’re always keeping a watchful eye on the future and thinking about how and where we will be for our visitors,” he said. “For the many visitors who pass through and do not yet know what a national wildlife refuge is, to the folks who hold in a special place in their hearts and return annually … I’m confident that for many years to come, because we’re raising this building, we can meet them right here.”

The renovation was joint project with the Coastal Wildlife Refuge Society, the nonprofit that supports northeastern North Carolina national wildlife refuges, and Lanier called particular attention to their efforts.

“Former Visitor Services Manager Bonnie Strawser launched a fundraising campaign to elevate the building. Over $25,000 was donated to the cause,” Lanier said, also drawing attention to the hours of volunteer labor that went into raising the building and improving it.

The ribbon cutting was a delayed celebration. Renovations were completed in spring 2020, but COVID-19 restrictions prevented the reopening.

The delay, though, did allow Lanier to address what he said are improving conditions for the Pea Island and Alligator River national wildlife refuges.

The keynote speaker for the ribbon cutting was Interior Department Assistant Secretary for Fish and Wildlife and Parks Shannon Estenoz. Accompanying her was Deputy Regional Director Mike Oetker, and Lanier went out of his way to praise them.

“I’ll say this with all sincerity, after spending time with Shannon and Mike yesterday, I can’t remember when I’ve been more inspired about what I’m doing and what you are doing and how you’re helping us,” he said. “It was a shot in the arm.”

In her comments, Estenoz drew attention to the importance of the wildlife refuge system.

“You’re really at the intersection of what so many of our refuges are trying to do,” she said. “You’re at the forefront of climate change. You’re right on the leading edge here trying to protect wildlife, trying to protect important coastal resources and then offering to the public ways in which they can come and be on their public lands and enjoy public lands and understand the important role that they play in American life.”

She also noted the long-needed investments in the Fish and Wildlife Service that the federal government is preparing to make.

“I think we can take hope from the passage of the bipartisan infrastructure law that President Biden (signed) into law,” Estenoz said. “This is a generational investment in the resilience of both national infrastructure and hard infrastructure … for this country.”

A native of Key West, Florida, Estenoz’s background is in civil engineering, and she made it clear she understands how tenuous the N.C. 12 highway connection is.

“This feels really familiar, like a very familiar challenge. I know how challenging it is, because I know how costly these kinds of investments can be. But I don’t think of them as costs. I think of them as investments,” she said.

Estenoz, in response to reporters’ questions after the ribbon cutting, also noted the importance of the Great American Outdoors Act, another bipartisan measure signed into law during the Trump administration.

“That’s a 2020 piece of legislation that was also a generational investment in land acquisition and protected areas. I think you’ll see all over the refuge system additional acquisitions, bringing more lands into the refuges. And secondly, there’s also a big infrastructure component there, and that is to address some of the deferred maintenance of the infrastructure that we were under-invested in,” she said. “That’s been going on for some time.”

The need for updated, improved and expanded refuges is valuable, she explained, in helping people understand the importance of environmental stewardship.

“To be out here, to see the landscape and the wildlife. It’s a place where people learn what it’s like,” she said. “There’s no substitute. In that respect, these are invaluable places.”

President Trump on Tuesday signed into law a bipartisan bill that will tap energy revenues to address a $12 billion backlog of maintenance projects on federal lands, including more than $459 million in national parks in North Carolina.

Introduced in 2019 by the late Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga., the Great American Outdoors Act also makes funding for the Land and Water Conservation Fund permanent. Earlier this year, the Trump administration had proposed significant cuts to the fund.

Republican 3^rd District Congressman Greg Murphy voted for the bill, which the House passed July 22.

Murphy’s office noted in a press release in July that Cape Hatteras National Seashore will receive $49,834,106, and Cape Lookout National Seashore will receive $27,718,515 as a result of the legislation.

The Land and Water Conservation Fund supports national forests, refuges and parks, including the Croatan National Forest, Alligator River National Wildlife Refuge, Cedar Island National Wildlife Refuge, Currituck National Wildlife Refuge, Great Dismal Swamp National Wildlife Refuge, Mackay Island National Wildlife Refuge, Mattamuskeet National Wildlife Refuge, Pea Island National Wildlife Refuge, Pocosin Lakes National Wildlife Refuge, Swan Quarter National Wildlife Refuge, Cape Hatteras National Seashore, Cape Lookout National Seashore, the Fort Raleigh National Historic Site and the Wright Brothers National Memorial.

The bill establishes the National Parks and Public Land Legacy Restoration Fund to support deferred maintenance projects on federal lands. For the next five years, an amount equal to half of energy development revenues from oil, gas, coal and alternative or renewable energy development on federal lands and waters is to be deposited into the fund, up to $1.9 billion for any year.

The fund must be used for priority deferred maintenance projects in specified systems that are administered by the National Park Service, the Forest Service, the Fish and Wildlife Service, the Bureau of Land Management and the Bureau of Indian Education.

Interior Secretary David L. Bernhardt announced Tuesday that entrance fees paid by those visiting lands managed by the department would be waived Wednesday. Bernhardt also announced that Aug. 4 will be designated “Great American Outdoors Day,” a fee-free day each year to commemorate the signing of the act. Fees such as camping and cabin rentals and others will remain in effect.

Entrance fees to national wildlife refuges, including those in North Carolina, are temporarily suspended.

The U.S.  Fish and Wildlife Service announced Thursday that Interior Secretary David Bernhardt put the hold on entrance fees until further notice.

“I’ve directed the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to waive entrance fees at national wildlife refuges that remain open. This small step makes it a little easier for the American public to enjoy the outdoors at these incredible places,” said Bernhardt. “Our vast public lands that are overseen by the Department offer special outdoor experiences to recreate, embrace nature and implement some social distancing.”

Outdoor spaces will remain open to the public at most refuges when possible to adhere to public health guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Many facilities such as visitor centers will be closed.

“The health of our visitors is our number one priority,” said Service Director Aurelia Skipwith. “When CDC guidance is followed, a national wildlife refuge can be the perfect antidote to cabin fever and a boon to our mental well-being during this unprecedented time.”

Officials urged visitors to follow CDC guidance while visiting refuges. Updates about the response to the coronavirus will be posted online.

Fish and Wildlife Service officials recommend check the refuge’s website before visiting. The following is a list of refuges in North Carolina:

• Alligator River National Wildlife Refuge 
• Cedar Island National Wildlife Refuge 
• Currituck National Wildlife Refuge 
• Great Dismal Swamp National Wildlife Refuge
• Mackay Island National Wildlife Refuge 
• Mattamuskeet National Wildlife Refuge
• Mountain Bogs National Wildlife Refuge
• Pea Island National Wildlife Refuge
• Pee Dee National Refuge and Conservation Area
• Pocosin Lakes National Refuge
• Roanoke River National Refuge and Conservation Area
• Swan Quarter National Refuge and Conservation Area