ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, December 22, 1996 TAG: 9612230084
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B-7 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: HATTERAS ISLAND, N.C.
SOURCE: Associated Press
SCIENTISTS predict that the lighthouse could topple into the rough Atlantic in a Category 4 hurricane if it's not moved.
Some people think the Cape Hatteras Lighthouse is destined to fall into the Atlantic Ocean.
However, a group of professors spent Friday trying to make sure the 126-year-old monument doesn't meet a watery fate.
``Several people say, `Let's let it die a natural death.' But the vast majority of visitors want to see it moved. And they wonder when that will be done,'' said lighthouse volunteer tour guide Ivor Rundgren.
``I think it's been studied enough. We need to get moving. It would be a national tragedy to let anything happen to this lighthouse,'' Rundgren said.
Wearing heavy overcoats, thick gloves and woolen caps of various styles, five North Carolina State University professors climbed Cape Hatteras Lighthouse's 268 stairs and braved below-freezing temperatures on its iron-railed balcony.
They looked at cracks in the tower's thick, mortared walls. They studied the shifting shoreline. They peered above dense underbrush at an orange flag that marked the lighthouse's proposed new location about 2,500 feet southwest of the current site. And they decided that the historic monument could survive a move.
The nation's tallest brick beacon could be a half-mile farther from the ocean by the turn of the century if the professors say sliding it away from encroaching waves is the best way to save it, and if Congress allocates $12 million in federal funds to do the job.
Ellis Cowling, chairman of the state's lighthouse committee, said scientists' ability to understand coastal storms has increased substantially over the past decade. Technology to move tall structures has improved since the National Academy of Sciences studied moving the lighthouse in 1987.
``Spring of 1999 is the best-case scenario,'' Cape Hatteras National Seashore Superintendent Russ Berry said Friday. ``The Park Service will begin testing soil along the move route this spring. We're optimistic enough to start spending some money on the project now.''
Towering 208 feet and weighing more than 3,000 tons, Buxton's black and white beacon is one of the world's best-known lighthouses, drawing more than 150,000 visitors each year. It sits on a spit of sand jutting into the most dangerous waters of the Atlantic. Its flashing signal has saved thousands of ships.
When it was built in 1870, the Cape Hatteras lighthouse was a quarter-mile from the sea. But storms have eroded the beach around its octagonal base. An average of 12.8 feet of shoreline washes away from the area each year. Today, only 120 feet of sand separate the tower from the tides. One big blow could send the beloved beacon into the surf.
Scientists have shown that ``there's an 80 percent chance of that lighthouse being lost in a Category 4 hurricane or in three nor'easters that come within close proximity of each other,'' Berry told the professors.
Park Service officials say the beacon can be relocated in one piece. They've already spent $3 million studying the options, shoring up the structure and implementing interim measures to save it. They've stacked sandbags around the base and repaired rock jetties that deflect waves offshore.
They were planning to ask Congress for another $1.75 million this year to build a fourth jetty that would slow erosion south of the lighthouse. But Berry said state regulations might prohibit such a hardened structure from being built on the beach. So he's earmarked $22,000 to study soil along the relocation route instead.
LENGTH: Medium: 71 linesby CNB