Outer Banks weighs Sandy's flooding, wave damage

EMERY P. DALESIO,Associated Press

KILL DEVIL HILLS, N.C. (AP) — Peo­ple on North Carolina’s Outer Banks are brac­ing for more flood­ing from Hur­ri­cane Sandy.

The Cat­e­gory 1 hur­ri­cane brought light rain and dimin­ish­ing winds to the coast Mon­day, but more flood­ing on low-lying Hat­teras and Ocra­coke islands is expected with high tide.

Hyde County Emer­gency offi­cials say Ocra­coke was inun­dated by more than two feet of water in some spots. Stranded vis­i­tors and res­i­dents can­not move along long stretches of 70-mile-long Hat­teras Island because the main high­way is cov­ered with sand and salt water as storm-driven waves punched through pro­tec­tive dunes. At least one ocean­front home in Rodan­the collapsed.

In Cur­rituck County, sheriff’s deputies reported no major dam­age or storm-related injuries overnight Sun­day and early Mon­day, spokesman Rod Edwards said.

Dam­age assess­ment teams started tour­ing the county after sunrise.

There was spo­radic local­ized flood­ing in the county, but main road­ways remained pass­able, Edwards said.

In Corolla, North Car­olina 12 was clear but the 4-wheel drive beach road was not passable.

The state Trans­porta­tion Depart­ment closed the bridge over Ore­gon Inlet because inspec­tors deter­mined a loose sec­tion of rail­ing made it unsafe for traffic.

Posted by AP News on Oct 29 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.