Part of N.C. 12 in Kitty Hawk collapses onto beach

By on May 3, 2015


About 100 yards of N.C. 12 at the end of East Kitty Hawk Road has collapsed after being undermined by waves kicked up from a coastal storm that passed over the Outer Banks on May Day.

More than 150 yards of dune line in the Milepost 4 area took a beating from waves of up to 8 feet on Friday and into Saturday.

The road was closed early Saturday after high tide Friday evening and Saturday morning carved out the sand alongside the roadway to a depth of as much as 8 feet to the beach below.

What remained of the dunes to the north and south of the blowout were sliced in half, with cliffs of as much as 15 feet from the peak to the beach.

[adrotate banner=”425″]Tides higher than normal due to a full moon on Saturday night and Sunday morning washed out the sand underneath the northbound lane, and the pavement fell to the beach below.

A much longer stretch of dune line and N.C. 12 in the same area was washed out by Hurricane Sandy in 2012, and sheet piling was placed against the road bed just north of where this weekend’s washout happened.

The N.C. Department of Transportation and Kitty Hawk town officials have not said how or when repairs will begin.

Waves were still running in the six-foot range Sunday, with another high tide around 8:30 p.m. The surf is forecast to drop to 2 to 4 feet on Monday.

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