Lou’s Views
News & Views / November Edition
Calendar of Events
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Discover a wide range of things to do in the Brunswick Islands for an experience that goes beyond the beach.
For more information » click here.
Calendar of Events Island
Turkey Trot
The Town of Holden Beach will hold its eleventh annual Turkey Trot on Thanksgiving morning Thursday, November 27th at 8:00 a.m. All individuals interested in participating should email Christy at christy.ferguson@hbtownhall.com to register. Please bring a canned food item to donate to the local food pantry.
Tree Lighting
Come one, Come all!
The Town of Holden Beach will hold its sixteenth annual tree lighting ceremony at Bridgeview Park on Thursday, December 4th at 6:00 p.m. with entertainment beginning at 5:30 p.m.
Snowman Competition
The Town of Holden Beach will sponsor a snowman creation competition to be judged as part of our annual tree lighting event on Thursday, December 4th. The snowman must be edible. There will be two categories: one for businesses/organizations and one for individuals. Entries should be dropped off by 4:30 p.m. at Bridgeview Park and should be picked up by 6:30 p.m. that evening or they will be discarded.
Reindeer Dash and Santa Saunter
Don’t let the season of good treats catch up with your waistline. The Town of Holden Beach will host a fun run/walk on Saturday, December 6th at 8:00 a.m. starting at Town Hall. For those who wish to run the event, channel your inner reindeer and dress in your best reindeer attire (homemade is excellent). For those that want to move more like the jolly old guy himself, dress in your best Santa attire and saunter through the course. The approximately 2-mile route will be starting your Saturday off with a little fitness and lots of fun!
Please email christy.ferguson@hbtownhall.com to register by November 28th at 5:00 p.m.
Sandy Paws Dog Parade
Join us on Saturday, December 6th at 9:00 a.m. in front of the Town Hall Public Assembly for our eleventh annual Sandy Paws Dog Parade. We will do a short walk around the block and back to the picnic shelter where you can have your dog’s picture taken with Santa. There is no fee but we will be accepting donations of pet supplies for the animal shelter.
Note: we cannot accept monetary donations.
Please email christy.ferguson@hbtownhall.com to register by November 28th at 5:00 p.m.
The Chapel Choir Christmas Musical Performance
The Holden Beach Choir is preparing for its fifth annual Christmas concert with a live orchestra. On Sunday December 21st at 7:00pm, the choir will present the musical In Adoration of the King of Kings, accompanied by the Chamber Orchestra.
Shag Lessons
The Town of Holden Beach is taking an interest list for beginner shag lessons running for six weeks, January 8th 8th – February 12th. The class will be held at Town Hall at 6:00 p.m. The cost is $60 per person for residents and $70 per person for non-residents. Chuck Boney and Sandy Boney will be the instructors.
Email Christy at christy.ferguson@hbtownhall.com if you are interested.
Parks & Recreation / Programs & Events
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Reminders
Pets on the Beach Strand
Pets – Chapter 90 / Animals / 90.20
Effective September 10th
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- Pets allowed back on the beach strand during the hours of 9:00am through 5:00pm
- Dog’s need to be on a leash
- Owner’s need to clean up after their animals
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News from Town of Holden Beach
The town sends out emails of events, news, agendas, notifications, and emergency information. If you would like to be added to their mailing list, please go to their web site to complete your subscription to the Holden Beach E-Newsletter.
For more information » click here
Paid Parking
Paid parking in Holden Beach
Paid parking will be enforced from 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. daily with free parking before and after that time. All parking will use license plates for verification.
Rates
Parking rates for a single vehicle in all designated areas will be:
$5 per hour for up to four hours
$20 per day for any duration greater than four hours
$80 per week for seven consecutive days
Handicap Parking
A vehicle displaying a handicap license plate and/or hang tag parked in a designated handicap space is free. Any other parking space will require a parking permit via the app.
Annual Passes
Annual permits for the calendar year allow vehicles (this includes low-speed vehicles and trailers) access to designated parking.
$175 for a single vehicle
Passes can be purchased via the app, website or by telephone.
Where to Park
Per ordinance, there is no parking on the streets or rights-of-way except in designated parking spaces identified by Pay-to-Park signs. Click here to view an interactive map. The table with authorized parking can be viewed below.
Citations will be issued for:
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- Parking without an active paid permit in a designated parking area
- Parking within 40 feet of a street intersection
- Parking in a crosswalk, sidewalk, or pedestrian access ways
- Parking blocking a driveway or mailbox
- Parking facing opposing traffic
- Parking in a no parking zone, or within right-of-way
- Parking on any portion of the roadway or travel lane
- Parking a non-LSV vehicle in an authorized LSV location
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How Do I Pay to Park
The Town uses the SurfCAST by Otto Connect Mobile Solution. This is a mobile app downloadable for Apple and Android devices. Download the app today. Users will setup their account, enter their license plate details and pay for parking directly on the app. Alternatively, users can scan the QR Code located on the parking signs to access a secure website.
The Otto Connect customer service team will be available to help via phone and email.
Solid Waste Pickup Schedule
GFL Environmental change in service, October through May trash pickup will be once a week.
Please note:
Trash carts must be at the street by 6:00 a.m. on the pickup day
BAG the trash before putting it in the cart
Carts will be rolled back to the front of the house
GFL Refuse Collection Policy
GFL has recently notified all Brunswick County residents that they will no longer accept extra bags of refuse outside of the collection cart. This is not a new policy but is stricter enforcement of an existing policy. While in the past GFL drivers would at times make exceptions and take additional bags of refuse, the tremendous growth in housing within Brunswick County makes this practice cost prohibitive and causes drivers to fall behind schedule.
Solid Waste Pickup Schedule
starting October once a week
Recycling
starting October every other week pick-up
Yard Waste Service
Yard debris is collected on the second (2nd) and fourth (4th) Fridays during the months of October, November, and December.Yard debris needs to be secured in a biodegradable bag (not plastic) or bundled in a maximum length not to exceed five (5) feet and fifty (50) pounds in weight. Each residence is allowed a total of ten (10) items, which can include a combination of bundles of brush and limbs meeting the required length and weight and/ or biodegradable bags. Picks-ups are not provided for vacant lots or construction sites.
Curbside Recycling – 2025
GFL Environmental is now offering curbside recycling for Town properties that desire to participate in the service. The service cost per cart is $119.35 annually paid in advance to the Town of Holden Beach. The service consists of a ninety-six (96) gallon cart that is emptied every other week during the months of October – May and weekly during the months of June – September.
Curbside Recycling Application » click here
Curbside Recycling Calendar » click here
Trash Can Requirements – Rental Properties
GFL Environmental – trash can requirements
Ordinance 07-13, Section 50.08
Rental properties have specific number of trashcans based on number of bedrooms.
* One extra trash can per every 2 bedrooms
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§ 50.08 RENTAL HOMES.
(A) Rental homes, as defined in Chapter 157, that are rented as part of the summer rental season, are subject to high numbers of guests, resulting in abnormally large volumes of trash. This type of occupancy use presents a significantly higher impact than homes not used for summer rentals. In interest of public health and sanitation and environmental concerns, all rental home shall have a minimum of one trash can per two bedrooms. Homes with an odd number of bedrooms shall round up (for examples one to two bedrooms – one trash can; three to four bedrooms – two trash cans; five – six bedrooms – three trash cans, and the like).
Upon Further Review
Paid parking brought millions to Brunswick beach towns in 2025
After a busy summer, Brunswick County beach towns are seeing how much revenue was brought in from paid parking programs. As the holiday season is in full swing, towns are receiving year-to-date summary presentations on how well their paid parking programs did. Five waterfront towns in Brunswick County charge fees to park using OTTO Connect for their paid parking services. While some only charge the fee on a seasonal basis, one town enforces paid parking throughout the year. The towns combined to bring in more than $3 million. The municipalities of Bald Head Island, Caswell Beach, Southport, Calabash and Shallotte have not implemented paid parking programs. However, Southport considered it in 2025.
Here’s how the Brunswick County communities fared in paid parking revenue for 2025.
Oak Island
Gross revenue: $1,912,712
Total parked vehicles: 166,152
The town of Oak Island generated a total net revenue of $1,313,831 from their paid parking program, according to OTTO Connect CEO Jim Varner’s Nov. 12 presentation. Oak Island has been the only Brunswick County town with paid parking to raise its seasonal permit rate to $225. Oak Island enforces paid parking April 1 through Sept. 30 from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., Varner suggested the town consider expanding its paid parking season until October. Varner said there was an increase in parking violations in 2025 due to an increase in resident only parking spaces. Parking rates are $5 per hour, $20 per day and $80 per week per vehicle. Residents can purchase up to three resident parking permits for $10 each. Residents can start purchasing 2026 parking permits in Dec. 2025. Visitor permits will become available in Jan. 2026, per the presentation.
Where to park: All on-island public parking spaces will be considered paid parking. Details: https://www.oakislandnc.gov/residents-visitors/parking-information.
Holden Beach
Gross revenue: $1,188,392
Total parked vehicles: 66,659
As of Oct. 8, 2025, the town of Holden Beach has generated a total net revenue of $803,148 from its paid parking program, Varner said on Oct. 21. Varner said he expects the town to make $880,000 by the end of the year. This will be a small bump from the nearly $830,000 made in 2024, per Varner’s presentation. The town of Holden Beach first implemented paid parking in 2022. Originally, the town enacted seasonal paid parking from April 1 to Oct. 31 with rates of $3 per hour, $15 per day, $60 per week, or $125 per year. In 2023 and 2024, the town increased parking rates to $5 per hour, $20 per day, $80 per week and $175 for a single vehicle annual pass and transitioned to year-round paid parking. OTTO Connect counted a total of 66,659 vehicles parked on the island so far this year, a decrease of nearly 81,000 vehicles counted in 2024. Over 26,000 vehicles were counted in parking spaces in June and July alone. Annual parking permits for 2026 are to become available in December 2025. All other permits will become available in January 2026.
Where to park: Holden Beach does not permit parking on streets or rights-of-way, except where designated by signs. Map with parking details is at https://www.scribblemaps.com/maps/view/HB-Parking/HBParking.
Ocean Isle Beach
Gross revenue: $749,500
Total parked vehicles: 43,694
For its first time charging for parking, Ocean Isle Beach generated a total net revenue of $512,554, according to Varner’s Nov. 10 presentation. “This was probably the exceptionally best first year in a town that we’ve ever had,” Varner said. The town enforces paid parking April 1 through Oct. 31 from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Parking rates are $5 per hour, $20 per day, $80 per week per vehicle and $175 per vehicle for an annual pass. OTTO Connect’s data showed the two most-used parking lots were Town Center Park and Monroe Street. Both parking lots have 30 parking spaces and Otto Connect counted over 6,700 vehicles parked at each lot throughout the paid parking season. “Most residents purchased a visitor permit and were not counted separately,” the presentation noted. Ocean Isle Beach’s paid parking season permits will become available in January 2026, per Varner’s presentation.
Where to park: Any designated parking spot on the island. Designated parking areas are free to park from 5 p.m. to midnight and 6 a.m.-9 a.m. No parking midnight to 6 a.m.
Sunset Beach
Gross revenue: $636,112
Total parked vehicles: 43,438
The town of Sunset Beach also initiated paid parking for the first time in April 2025 and fell close behind Ocean Isle Beach with a net revenue of $445,301, as of Oct. 6, 2025. “Frankly, Sunset Beach broke my model for revenue,” said Varner, noting the town exceeded his revenue expectation by almost $150,000. The town enforces paid parking April 1 through Oct. 31 from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Parking rates are $5 per hour, $20 per day, $80 per week per vehicle and $175 per vehicle for an annual pass. Property owners and residents can pay $25 for up to two vehicles. However, residency is confirmed using specific Brunswick County tax parcel information. Resident permits for the 2026 paid parking season with be available in December 2025 and seasonal parking permits in January 2026, per Varner’s presentation.
Where to park: Information on parking at Sunset Beach can be found at https://sunsetbeachnc.gov.
Varnamtown
The town of Varnamtown also kicked off a paid parking program at its boat ramp in 2025 and has received a net revenue of $1,695, town clerk Sandi Parrish told the StarNews. The town did not have an end of year report detailing the program’s gross income and parking data, Parrish said. Varnamtown started the program at the boat ramp on May 5 and ended it Oct. 15. The town set its parking rates at $20 a day for single vehicles and $40 a day for truck and trailers. Property owners are allowed one free parking permit per season.
During the paid parking season, the parking lot across the road from 32 Fisherman Road is visitor parking and the parking lot at the corner of Fisherman Road and Old River Road is designated for Varnamtown property owners only.
Read more » click here
Corrections & Amplifications
OIB Terminal Groin
Ocean Isle Beach completed construction of a terminal groin on its east end in April 2022 to help protect the beach immediately behind it. However, this structure has contributed to significant erosion at the east end near Shallotte Inlet by interrupting natural longshore drift, prompting ongoing efforts such as sandbag use to prevent ocean encroachment on properties in that area.
View of OIB east of the terminal groin after Hurricane Erin passed offshore
2024 OIB SHORELINE AND INLET ANNUAL MONITORING REPORT
On Holden Beach, the recent volume change rates (May 2024 to November 2024) along the oceanfront shoreline indicated erosion at 12 of the 21 monitoring stations. Similarly, the MHW shoreline change rates indicated a shoreline retreat at 15 of the 21 monitoring stations. The long-term post-construction linear shoreline changes along the Holden Beach oceanfront shoreline indicated landward retreat. However, volumetric changes indicated slight accretion (0.2 cy/ft./yr.) within this area over the long-term period. The shoreline threshold analysis results along the Holden Beach oceanfront shoreline show that the post-construction shoreline change threshold was exceeded at only one monitoring station. This is the first time a threshold has been exceeded at Holden Beach since this annual analysis started in 2022. In addition, the analysis of May 2024 aerial imagery-derived wet/dry line revealed an 885 ft. section of Holden Beach inlet shoreline that exceeded the inlet shoreline threshold by a maximum distance of 100 feet. The inlet shoreline threshold on Holden Beach was also exceeded in Year-2. This marks two straight years where this threshold was exceeded. The inlet shoreline recession is believed to likely be attributed to a combination of morphological changes within Shallotte Inlet including the position and orientation of the main channel through Shallotte Inlet and the formation of a flood channel on the inlet shoulder of Holden Beach. Regardless, as stated in the Plan, because the shoreline changes in this area exceeded the threshold over the entire 2-year confirmation period, an assessment of the proper responsive measures will be made through coordination with State and Federal regulatory officials.
Sand is vanishing on east side of Ocean Isle $11M erosion fix
When the Army Corps of Engineers issued its final decision on the terminal groin project here more than eight years ago, the document conveyed a prescient warning. A terminal groin may increase erosion along the easternmost point of Ocean Isle Beach, down-drift of the structure. Today, the shoreline east of terminal groin is being gnawed away, vanishing beach in front of a neighborhood of grand, multimillion-dollar homes built shortly after the $11 million erosion-control structure was completed in spring 2022. A wall of sandbags fends off waves from reaching some of the waterfront homes on the ocean side of the gated community that advertised as luxurious coastal living. Several lots remain vacant because the properties no longer have enough beachfront necessary to meet the state ocean setback requirements. I would have never developed the property if I had known this was going to happen, said Doc Dunlap, a developer with Pointe OIB, LLC just devastating to tell you the truth. I even had plans myself to build there, have a summer home. The caveat written in the federal record of decision all those years ago, one that was a central argument in a lawsuit to try and stop the terminal groin from being built, was not explicitly pointed out to the developers of The Pointe, they say. In an email responding to Coastal Review questions, the Division of Coastal Management said it, not aware of any specific notification to those property owners other than the standard (area of environmental concern) hazard notice. We were just under the impression that all of this was going to be extremely positive and help protect this part of the beach, said Jimmy Bell, who contributed to the planning and implementation of the community. And then, once we started experiencing this massive erosion, I started researching groins more. We had engineers and other people that were helping, and we were informed and under the impression that it was going to all be good, and now turning out to not be quite as good. Ocean Isle Beach Mayor Debbie Smith pushed back on those claims. My heart breaks for them, but the developers knew that that groin was going in, she said. They knew it was not designed to protect that area. It was not designed to harm it, but they also know that adjacent 2,000 feet west of them was a line of sandbags and most of them had been there for years. The developers are now seeking legal representation as they continue to try to figure out how to protect the oceanfront properties within the 44-lot neighborhood. Mr. Dunlap is extremely disappointed in the decisions made that resulted in the placement and construction of the terminal groin and the erosion damages it has caused, John Hilton III, corporate counsel to Pointe OIB, stated in an email. He is committed to holding those who made these decisions legally accountable and also seeking a remedy to correct the ongoing erosion. We are working to obtain local legal counsel to explore and pursue all available options.
Erosion-battered shore
The east end of the island at Shallotte Inlet historically accreted and eroded naturally as the inlet wagged back and forth between Ocean Isle Beach and Holden Beach up until Hurricane Hazel hit in 1954. When the powerful hurricane likely a Category 4 storm using the Saffir-Simpson scale developed in 1971 made landfall in October 1954 near the South Carolina border, it caused the inlet channel to move in a more easterly direction, accelerating erosion at the east end of the barrier island. Erosion has remained persistent in that area since the 1970s, according to N.C. Division of Coastal Management records. The worst of the erosion occurred along about a mile of oceanfront shore beginning near the inlet. An encroaching ocean claimed homes, damaged and destroyed public utilities, and prompted the N.C. Department of Transportation to abandon state-maintained streets. In 2005, the town was permitted to install at the east a wall of sandbags to barricade private properties and infrastructure from ocean waves. Sandbags revetments are, under state rules, to be used as a temporary measure to hold erosion at bay. In 2011, the North Carolina General Assembly repealed a decades-old state law that prohibited permanent, hardened erosion-control structures from being built on North Carolina beaches. Under the revised law, a handful of beach communities, including Ocean Isle Beach, get the option to pursue installing a terminal groin at an inlet area. Terminal groins are wall-like structures built perpendicular to the shore at inlets to contain sand in areas of high erosion like the east end of Ocean Isle Beach. These structures are controversial because they capture sand that travels down the beach near shore, depleting the sand supply to the beach immediately downdrift of the structure, stripping land that is natural habitat for, among others, sea turtles and shorebirds. Ocean Isle Beach Sea Turtle Protection Organization Island Coordinator Deb Allen said that beach conditions east of the terminal groin have hindered turtles from nesting there this season. Escarpment, sandbags and debris that Allen believes is coming from the development have impeded turtles from accessing the sandy areas they seek to lay their eggs. As of early September, the organization had recorded four false crawls, which is when a female turtle crawls onto a beach only to return to the ocean without laying eggs, and three nests east of the terminal groin, Allen said. The potential for that type of impact to wildlife was argued in a lawsuit the Southern Environmental Law Center filed on behalf of the National Audubon Society in August 2017 challenging the Corps approval of Ocean Isle Beach project. The lawsuit claimed that the Corps failed to objectively evaluate alternatives to the terminal groin, including those that would be less costly to Ocean Isle residents and less destructive to the coast, particularly to what was then the undeveloped area on the island east end. The lawsuit, which later included the town, came to an end in March 2021 after a panel of appellate court judges affirmed a lower court decision that the Corps fairly considered the alternatives included in an environmental impact statement, or EIS, examining the proposed project. As we went through and talked about the impacts of terminal groins in the EIS, this was the central argument will the land east of the groin erode at a more rapid pace? And, everything we could point to, all of the science, said yes, said Geoff Gisler, program director of SELC Chapel Hill office. Theres only so much sand and the way that these structures operate is they keep more of it in one place and necessarily take it from somewhere else. That’s why we have seen over and over again that when you build a groin towards the end of an island, what happens is the island erodes at the end. That there is less sand going to the east end is not an accident.
Righting this wrong
Gisler said the SELC will be following how the town and the Corps respond to the erosion that is occurring east of the terminal groin. The town committed and the Corps committed to righting this wrong if it occurred and that’s what we’ll be looking at he said. Under conditions in the towns federal permit, the town is required to monitor the sand spit east of The Pointe as well as the towns shoreline and that of neighboring Holden Beach to the west. Should those shorelines erode past boundaries identified in 1999, consideration will be given to modifying the structure to allow more sediment to move from west to east past the structure, according to final EIS. The town also has the option to nourish an eroded shoreline. In the event the negative impacts of the terminal groin cannot be mitigated with beach nourishment or possible modifications to the design of the terminal groin, the terminal groin would be removed, the EIS states. The Corps and the Division of Coastal Management are reviewing the monitoring report submitted by the engineering firm hired by the town, Coastal Protection Engineering of North Carolina. That report indicates that erosion has exceeded the 1999 shoreline threshold for the area immediately east of the groin. However, the applicant is working on a modification request to alter this threshold as the shoreline had eroded landward of part of that threshold prior to construction of the groin, according to the division. A beach maintenance project scheduled for fall 2026 to inject sand west of the terminal groin is anticipated to increase the rate of sand that bypasses the terminal groin and would serve to feed the shoreline immediately east of the groin with additional material, according to the towns engineer. But The Pointe developers and property owners say they can’t wait another year. Theres got to be an exception to the standard application restrictions (i.e., sandbag placement and height) the (Coastal Area Management Act/Coastal Resources Commission) process has today to protect near term east of the groin due to emergency status and a path longer term that can get us to a point of evaluating what we can do for the groin from a redesign standpoint that would protect all both west and east of the groin, property owner Brendan Flynn said. What we’re dealing with now in my view is we need to have another review of what could be done to enhance the groins performance to benefit and protect the other part of this island. Smith said that the terminal groin is doing what it was designed to do. It is building up right adjacent to the groin, she said. It just has not built anything far enough down to protect this new development. I wish Mother Nature would reserve herself and build it up right now instead of taking it away. I wish I had some magic bullet for them too, but I don’t today. It’s really up to them to take some action. Kerri Allen, director of the North Carolina Coastal Federations southeast office in Wrightsville Beach, called the situation heartbreaking, but not surprising. The Coastal Federation publishes Coastal Review. “When you alter the natural movement of sand with a hardened structure like the terminal groin, you might protect one stretch of beach, but you inevitably put other areas at greater risk, she said. And, unfortunately, the erosion we’re seeing east of the groin is exactly what experts warn could happen. That being said, the purpose of this groin was to protect existing infrastructure that was already at risk. Instead, new homes were built in an area thats incredibly vulnerable and these homeowners are now facing devastating losses. Moving forward, we need to focus on solutions that don’t just shift the problem from one place to another and ensure that public resources aren’t used to subsidize these risky, short-term development decisions. I think this is a pivotal moment for Ocean Isle and for other coastal towns, she continued. We have an opportunity to step back, look at the science, and commit to managing our coast in a way that protects both our communities and the natural systems that sustain them. That means resisting the temptation to build our way out of these challenges because, ultimately, the ocean always wins.
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Previously reported – August 2018
Recognition of 2018 Pelican Award from the North Carolina Coastal Federation to the Town of Holden Beach Board of Commissioners for Outstanding Leadership and Dedication to Keep Our Coast Accessible and Public – Commissioner Butler and Commissioner Freer
Town of Holden Beach, Dunescape Property Owners Association and the Holden Beach Property Owners Association For Outstanding Leadership and Dedication to Keep Our Coast Accessible and Public
Flanked by the beautiful Lockwoods Folly Inlet, the eastern end of Holden Beach was threatened to be forever changed by an unnecessary and expensive engineered structure. But on April 17, 2018, the Holden Beach Board of Commissioners unanimously voted to permanently revoke the towns permit application for a terminal groin with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. This historic move would not have been possible without the diligent evaluation of potential impacts by dedicated residents of the Dunescape Property Owners Association and the Holden Beach Property Owners Association Rhonda and Tom Dixon, Tom and Vicki Myers, Jay and Denise Holden, John and Margaret Witten, Rich Weigand, Lou Cutajar and Skip Klapheke. These and other Holden Beach residents tirelessly fought to bring to light the detrimental effects the terminal groin a rock, concrete, stone or metal structure built at an inlet, perpendicular to the coast would have had on the islands natural habitat and shoreline. Their forethought and action also positioned the town to save a lot of money for a project that likely would not work. The residents of Holden Beach persevered in their opposition and are true pioneers in showing how to exercise sound coastal management decision- making and recognizing that expensive hardened structures along our beaches are not the answer to erosion.
Holden Beach, associations honored with Pelican Award
Six years ago, Holden Beach considered constructing a terminal groin. Town officials received input from Holden Beach Property Owners Association and the Dunescape Property Association to teach residents about the process and possible outcomes before commissioners ultimately voted not to pursue the project. On July 28, the North Carolina Coastal Federation honored the town and the two associations with its Pelican Award for outstanding leadership and dedication to keep the North Carolina coast accessible and public.
Read more » click here
A Look Back: Holden Beach’s (Un)Done Deal
A terminal groin at the east end of Holden Beach was a given.
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Terminal Groin Committee Report
At the time that the Board was considering a terminal groin at the east end of the island there was quite the brouhaha. After considerable research and meetings, it appears that their decision not to build a terminal groin at an initial cost of thirty (30) million dollars was the right decision. US Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) warned us about the very issue that Ocean Island is currently experiencing. I would be remiss not to recognize those Commissioners that prevented this situation from happening to us on Holden Beach. My thanks to the elected Commissioners then: Joseph Butler, John Fletcher, Peter Freer, Patty Kwiatkowski, and Mike Sullivan.
Odds & Ends –
Noem at odds with Trump-appointed panel over future of FEMA
Instead of further shrinking and dismantling FEMA, the FEMA Review Council wants to make it more independent.
A panel appointed by President Donald Trump to review whether to eliminate the Federal Emergency Management Agency has instead concluded in a report that the agency should be more powerful and autonomous. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi L. Noem, however, wants to take FEMA in a different direction. The wrangling over the FEMA review council’s long-awaited report, which has been in the works for nearly 10 months, will help determine the fate of one of Trump’s controversial efforts to reshape the government and its ability to respond to disasters such as floods, fires and hurricanes. Noem, as the council co-chair, is responsible for finalizing the report and sending it to Trump for review. Her draft, which is not finished, recommends keeping FEMA within the Department of Homeland Security and largely removing FEMA from its direct role in disaster relief, instead turning it into more of a grant-making operation, according to five people familiar with the situation who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the private deliberations. The council’s earlier draft did not recommend those changes, but rather that FEMA gets elevated to a Cabinet-level office. Noem’s office also wants to reduce the federal government’s share of disaster-related costs to 50 percent, with states having to fund the other 50 percent with cash, which some council members staunchly opposed, according to a person familiar with the situation. Under FEMA guidelines, the federal government covers about 75 percent of costs, and in extreme cases it will front nearly 100 percent for a period of time. The council is recommending FEMA keep its current cost share responsibility, which is defined by the Stafford Act. A spokesperson for DHS denied Noem was trying to alter the report. “Secretary Noem is the Chairwoman of the council and has worked with committee members collaboratively on the reform report,” DHS spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement. She said the council has “spent months working to provide recommendations to reshape and reform the bureaucratic mess that exists at FEMA.” The negotiations over the report are still in flux, and the president’s final decision is not yet clear, according to people familiar with the process. Since he initially floated “reforming and overhauling FEMA — or maybe getting rid of FEMA” in January, Trump has met with first responders and victims’ families in disaster areas and heard from advisers and Republican officials who oppose eliminating the agency. The final report, which carries no legal weight but is a recommendation to the president for FEMA’s next steps, is expected in mid-December. The New York Times first reported details of tensions around the FEMA Review Council’s report earlier Wednesday. White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson described the council’s mandate as recommending how to make sure “the federal role remains supplemental and appropriate to the scale of disaster.” “Secretary Noem is working hard to implement the President’s vision that will best serve the American public,” Jackson said. Trump, who has been highly critical of FEMA, appointed the council in part to address criticism of the way the federal government responds to natural disasters, according to people involved in the process. The 10-member council, led by Noem and co-chaired by Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, is composed of Republican state and local elected officials, a veteran FEMA official and an insurance CEO. “When we first heard about the creation of this council, I think there were concerns that it would not do its due diligence,” said Pete Gaynor, who led FEMA for a time during Trump’s first administration. “But I think the council has done some pretty good work. I think they have made some positive recommendations on turning this thing from an overly complicated recovery process to something more simplified I think meets everyone’s goals.” In early November, the council submitted a 160-page draft proposal on how to revamp FEMA and improve the country’s disaster response system — the result of about 13,000 public comments and about a dozen public and closed meetings with communities, many small and rural, from Puerto Rico to Louisiana to Wyoming to California. The overarching conclusion aligned with Trump’s impulse to push more disaster-response capabilities and decisions to states. But the council, according to a person involved in the process and a review of meetings, became more focused on improving and elevating the agency, rather than shrinking or eliminating it. “President Trump is putting Americans first by creating a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to methodically align and strengthen how emergency management is integrated across all levels of government,” Kevin Guthrie, Florida’s director of emergency management, said during an August FEMA review council meeting in Oklahoma City. “We don’t get an opportunity to hit the reset button often, and we’ve been given that opportunity through this committee.” Some of the council’s detailed suggestions include making it easier for disaster-stricken residents and communities to get FEMA’s Individual and Public Assistance funds by accelerating the dispersal of funding to the communities and reforming how FEMA manages the National Flood Insurance Program, according to three people familiar with the report and a copy of its table of contents. It also proposed moving FEMA out of DHS and making it a Cabinet-level department. But after the report’s submission, Noem and her top adviser, former Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski, cut the draft proposal to fewer than 20 pages, while keeping open the possibility of releasing the rest as supplemental material, officials said. Some White House officials received a copy of the council’s unedited draft, according to two people familiar with the matter. “It’s like Edward Scissorhands,” a person familiar with the situation said of Noem’s edited version of the report. “She wants to chop it up and decentralize and really drastically limit FEMA. Many members on the council are not happy with how she has put her thumb on the scale.” Noem’s revisions also include a recommendation to further cut FEMA staff by about half and have FEMA only handle debris removal and emergency protective measures when responding to a disaster, moving most of its other work — such as helping repair damaged utilities, roads and bridges, public buildings and parks — to other agencies, according to a person familiar with the reports. In addition, about a month ago, Noem announced a desire to relocate FEMA’s headquarters from D.C. to Texas, which Politico first reported. Those ideas concerned some experts on the council who warned that state and local governments lack the resources to take over those responsibilities from FEMA and that the changes needed to be phased in to give states and local communities time to shift their budgets to better support their own emergency management capabilities. After Trump commissioned the council through an executive order in January, the administration had largely pinned FEMA’s future on what the council would suggest. The members took that mission seriously, according to people familiar with the process. While it was clear to some that Trump and Noem both desired to get rid of FEMA as it exists today, members of the council spent months sifting through feedback from all corners of the U.S., including tribes that often struggle to get federal disaster assistance, and determined that FEMA needed to make its programs more accessible to rural regions, according to people familiar with the report. The council also highlighted the need to mitigate risk by enabling communities to rebuild more safely, they said. That effort, one person said, created some tension between some council members and Noem and Lewandowski, who would often come into their meetings and interject his thoughts. One example is Noem’s proposal to move FEMA to Texas, and potentially tap Nim Kidd, the head of the Texas Division of Emergency Management and a member of the council, to lead the agency. She argued that relocating the agency’s headquarters was one of Trump’s desires, according to two people with knowledge of the situation, who added that some members of the council were shocked by the proposal. That shift had not been something the council was discussing, and relocating much of the agency’s operations out West seemed counterintuitive to the council’s goal of enabling FEMA to operate more efficiently and nimbly when responding to disasters across the U.S., those people said. White House officials told some council members that the relocation was not one of Trump’s priorities. Transferring much of the agency’s operations nearly across the country would make it much harder to coordinate a federal emergency response, experts and current and former officials said, especially since one of FEMA’s key responsibilities is ensuring that the executive branch can function during a national emergency, such as a terrorist attack, and overseeing national emergency communication systems. For the last few months, there has been speculation as to whether Noem would accept the council’s outline for the future of FEMA and thus the nation’s disaster response framework. At the National Emergency Management Association’s conference last month, Guthrie, the Florida emergency management director, addressed attendees, telling them about the much-awaited council report. Cameron Hamilton, FEMA’s former acting administrator whom Noem fired this spring for going against her desire to eliminate the agency, then asked him a blunt question: “What degree of confidence do you have that [the] report that you submit to DHS will be what is submitted to the president?” “[Guthrie] sighed,” Hamilton recalled. “He said he feels confident in the report that they will submit to the Secretary. And that’s where he stopped.”
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After getting pounded by storms and offshore hurricanes, what will wounded NC beaches do?
Recent storms and hurricanes passing the N.C. coast have pounded area beaches with heavy surf, causing significant erosion and raising concerns.
On Topsail Island, chunks of sand that had been pumped onto the beaches in Surf City and Topsail Beach in the past year have washed away. In Wrightsville Beach, the pounding waves from the slow-moving early October subtropical storm left large escarpments along much of the New Hanover County town’s beach and residents worried if the town’s beach would survive until a scheduled federal nourishment project in 2027. Down in Ocean Isle Beach in Brunswick County, the recent storm and heavy surf from several tropical systems that have passed by the East Coast while staying offshore have amplified an existing erosion problem on the barrier island’s east end and raised questions about the effectiveness of a terminal groin built three years ago to stabilize the beach. But nowhere along the N.C. coast has this hurricane season’s damage been worse than on the Outer Banks, where nine homes in Buxton collapsed into the Atlantic over a two-week span in late September and early October and left highway crews struggling to keep N.C. 12, the islands’ lifeline, open on Hatteras and Ocracoke islands. The damage, albeit highly localized to beachfront areas, shows that it doesn’t necessarily take a landfalling hurricane to make it a bad hurricane season for coastal communities. But experts say it also highlights that how we live, develop and try to protect our coast is increasingly becoming untenable, especially as costs for beach nourishment projects continue to rise and climate change promises to fuel higher seas and stronger storms in the coming years. The trajectory we’re on is unsustainable, said Dr. Robert Young, director of the Program for the Study of Developed Shorelines at Western Carolina University.
Why are the beaches so beaten?
When a large subtropical storm started forming in the Caribbean, officials knew it could be a problem for the East Coast especially since many coastal areas had already been pounded this summer by strong swells from several hurricanes that had passed by offshore. But this storm was different, from its path close to the coast to its big footprint. “This storm was a real beach-eater from Florida to Long Island (N.Y.),” Young said. The unnamed storm has left beach officials wondering what measures they can take to protect some of the most valuable real estate in their coastal communities, never mind also having an attractive asset to draw visitors back to fuel their tourist-dependent economies. But Young said damaged and, in some cases, completely eroded beaches along 1,000 miles of U.S. coastline won’t be an easy problem to fix. There are logistical issues, including a very small pool of U.S. contractors to actually do nourishment projects. Then there are the financial questions, especially in this political environment, if spending money to pump sand that might quickly wash away is the best use of taxpayer dollars. And then there’s the practical question. “We need to allow ourselves to consider slightly changing the map of our coastal communities and concentrate our money and sand on areas that can be saved,” Young said. He said this is especially true in communities where local taxpayers, sometimes with the state’s help, fund their own nourishment projects instead of having the federal government pick up most of the beach-building costs, as is the case in New Hanover County’s three beach towns. Already, officials in North Topsail Beach and in Dare County on the Outer Banks have said they don’t have the funds to nourish parts of their beachfront. And in Surf City, residents are in an uproar over a 30% increase in property taxes this year that town officials say is partly needed to help pay for beach nourishment. While surrendering erosion-prone areas of North Topsail Beach and the Outer Banks, for example, to Mother Nature might not be popular, managed retreat is really the only option if we want to save other parts of our coastal communities where it is feasible to try and protect property and vital infrastructure, Young said. “It’s already a burden for many of these small towns and the economics for continuing to do it are becoming more and more sketchy,” he said of the rising costs of beach nourishment and other erosion-control projects.
What’s going to happen?
While putting a Band-Aid on wounded beaches isn’t a long-term solution, it’s something coastal officials might have to look at in the coming weeks and months. Actions could include trucking in fresh sand; knocking down escarpments to makes beaches safer for visitors and to allow wave energy to be dissipated to some degree; and fast-tracking small beach-building projects, such as dredging sand from easily accessible inlets or other coastal waterways. Federal and state officials also could see about securing funding to help finance projects, although the current government shutdown could stymie that. But big-scale nourishment projects, the favored way of dealing with beach erosion woes, take time to plan, design and finance. Young said another option that could help coastal communities recover is to wave a century-old federal law, the 1906 Foreign Dredge Act, that limits dredging to U.S. companies. Opening beach nourishment work to foreign companies, primarily European, could help increase competition, lower prices and allow more work to be done within the sometimes restrictive environmental windows designed to protect nesting sea turtles and shorebirds. The rising cost of beach nourishment work has already been felt in the Wilmington area, with the federal project to nourish Carolina and Kure beaches delayed a year until this winter after the initial bids came in well over budget. Another option is to hope that the upcoming nor’easter season is a mild one and that a lot of the sand that has washed away is just offshore and will eventually be pushed back onshore over the next few weeks and months. Beaches naturally ebb and flow, so wide changes and shifting sands aren’t unusual. But Young said almost all of North Carolina’s beaches today have been engineered and modified one way or another by human hands. “I think it’s fair to say a lot of that sand simply isn’t going to come back,” he said. “It’s just gone.”
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This and That
Why deer-car collisions are rising in the Wilmington area, and November is the worst month
As development pushes out from Wilmington, deer-vehicle collisions are on the rise. But the number of deer also appears to be increasing as they adapt and hunting becomes more difficult in many areas
Billy Sampson said he didn’t see much before the collision. The sun had just set as he drove on Sidbury Road in northern New Hanover County headed home from work in November 2024. Just a streak crossing the road before the crash, and then a young doe sitting on his cracked windshield, her neck broken. “You just don’t have time to react,” Sampson said. “It happens before you know it.” Luckily, the damage to Sampson’s car was minimal, and he escaped the incident with only frayed nerves. But deer-vehicle collisions are an increasingly common occurrence in the Wilmington area as the region continues to boom. With subdivisions popping up in formerly off-the-beaten-track areas, deer and human interaction are rising. And with white-tailed deer among the most adaptable of all large animals in North America, in many areas their number are increasing just as the number of residents around the Cape Fear coast and other fast-growing parts of the Tar Heel State continue to rise. The result is an increase in deer-vehicle collisions on area roads after a slight downturn during the COVID-19 pandemic shutdown due to the reduction in traveling. With November the most common month for collisions, here’s a look at why drivers might want to pay a bit more attention out driving over the next few weeks and why this could be a troublesome situation that’s here to stay.
By the numbers
According to the N.C. Department of Transportation’s latest animal-related crash report, which tracked animal-vehicle collisions stretching back to 2017, last year showed a rising trend of incidents. Brunswick County saw the highest number of collisions in the Wilmington area, with 1,422 between 2022-24, ranking ninth in the state. Pender County saw 1,103 crashes over the same three-year period. The damage caused by the 2022-24 collisions was valued at $4.6 million in Brunswick and $3.4 million in Pender, with 39 total injures in Brunswick and 49 − including one fatal − in Pender. Fast-growing Wake County, home to Raleigh and Cary, saw the most animal crashes out of North Carolina’s 100 counties in the 2022-24 period, recording 2,676. Although state collision report forms don’t distinguish between animal types, data analyses shows that approximately 90% of all reported animal related crashes involve deer. In all three counties, 2024 saw the highest number of crashes − a trend that’s been increasing since 2020. While that’s partly due to the COVID-19 pandemic-related restrictions earlier this decade, which severely curtailed people’s traveling, the figures also likely reflect the tremendous population growth the three counties have seen in recent years. Brunswick County, for example, has seen it’s population jump from roughly 136,000 in 2020 to an estimated 175,000 in 2025. Due to its relatively small size and largely urban nature, deer-vehicle collisions in New Hanover County aren’t as high as larger counties, but are still a worry − especially as development pushes into the undeveloped northern parts of the county. According to the DOT report, New Hanover saw 86 collisions in 2024, and 250 in the 2022-24 window. That ranked 73rd in the state.
When are collisions most common?
According to the DOT report, the most collisions, 23% of the 63,487 recorded statewide 2022-24, occurred in November. Officials say a “perfect storm” of factors is to blame for this. They include November representing the height of the deer-mating season, which sees the animals on the move more than normal. Bucks especially can act erratically and with less caution as they chase does. Throw in Daylight Saving Time, which sees the clocks moved back in early November and means shorter days and more darkness during peak travel times, and it’s harder for drivers to see deer just when they are most active. According to the DOT, tips to help lower the chance of an animal collision include slowing down in areas known to be frequented by deer; driving with high beams on as much as possible; slow down and blow your horn if you see deer on the side of the road; and keep a safe distance between vehicles to help prevent you from becoming collateral damage if the car in front of you strikes a deer. After November, the three months that saw the most deer-car collisions were October (14.6%), December (12.9%) and January (8.2%). The DOT report also listed times that most crashes occur, and not surprisingly there were centered around dawn and dusk, with 6 a.m. the worst hour with 9.1% of all crashes. Next was 8 p.m., with 8.4% of crashes.
Why are collisions on the rise?
In many areas of Southeastern North Carolina, deer have always been a common part of the landscape. But as areas that used to be forest are turned into subdivisions and shopping centers, people and deer are coming into contact more often. That, however, doesn’t mean deer numbers are dropping per se. Deer, like coyotes, are very adaptable, and can easily live among human development, sharing parks and wooded areas just around the corner or even within neighborhoods. Limits on hunting in many areas due to public sentiment and safety concerns along with a lack of natural predators, aside from cars, also has allowed deer numbers to explode in many areas. That many yards and gardens include deer-friendly shrubs and flowers also has helped keep the mammals close to suburbia, since finding food is no longer a problem. According to the N.C. Wildlife Resources Commission, there are an estimated 1 million white-tailed deer in the state, a figure that’s remained relatively stable for a few decades. But while some rural areas have seen deer numbers fall slightly, the opposite has been happening in some of the state’s fast-growing metro areas. “Those areas where populations are rapidly increasing are typically urban/suburban areas where the utilization of hunting as a management tool has been greatly hindered,” the wildlife commission stated on its website. The combination of a lack of predators, a hunting ban and a deer smorgasbord of tasty garden treats saw Bald Head Island’s deer population surge in the late 1990s and early 2000s, prompting the ritzy Brunswick County island to turn to contraception to try and control its herd. But that isn’t an option, due to cost and questions of its effectiveness, for most communities. In areas where hunting remains popular, harvest numbers appear to be rising even as deer-vehicle collisions also are ticking up. In Brunswick County, for example, 2,128 deer were harvested in the 2024-25 season. That compares to 1,737 a decade before in the 2014-15 season, according to the wildlife commission. Pender County showed a similar trend, with hunters taking 3,070 deer in 2024-25 compared to 2,622 in 2014-15. Overall, N.C. hunters harvested nearly 189,000 deer during the 2024-25 season.
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Fear the deer: Crash data illuminates America’s deadliest animal
Behold the deer, the deadliest beast in North America. Deer are responsible for the deaths of about 440 of the estimated 458 Americans killed in physical confrontations with wildlife in an average year, according to Utah State University biologist Mike Conover, employing some educated guesswork in the latest edition of “Human-Wildlife Interactions.” Those deer-inflicted fatalities are not, so far as we know, caused by deer-on-human predation. They’re the unfortunate result of more than 2 million people a year plowing into deer with their sedans and SUV’s, usually on a two-lane road, often at high speed. You might wonder: Where and when am I most likely to hit a deer? And how can I avoid it? To shed light on this herbivorous hazard, we turned, of course, to data. Specifically, we analyzed more than 1 million animal-vehicle collisions compiled by Calumn Cunningham, Laura Prugh and their colleagues at the University of Washington for a recent paper published in Current Biology. They estimate deer were involved in more than 90 percent of the collisions, which occurred in 23 states between 1994 and 2021. With a few exceptions, the data show deer are at their most dangerous in November. Indeed, the deer threat peaks just before Thanksgiving typically Nov. 7 through 14 when you’re about three times more likely to hit a deer than at any other time of year. Experienced deer hunters can probably guess why driving in November can turn into Russian roulette on certain highways and byways: In much of the country, that’s rutting season. And during the rut, deer focus on procreation, not self-preservation. Marianne Gauldin of the Alabama Wildlife and Freshwater Fisheries Division compares rutting bucks to teenage boys. “They are hyper-focused on the opportunity to breed, and they therefore lose some of their wits,” Gauldin said. “They are full tilt looking for does, chasing does and running after does for the opportunity to breed. And they are doing this with tunnel vision … literally running across the road.” Does share similar distractions. They’re either in estrus hormonally receptive to sex and looking to breed or fleeing hot-and-bothered bucks until their cycles catch up. Collisions occur more often in states with the most white-tailed deer which experts say tend to have a shorter, sharper rut than the western mule deer and in states with long stretches of busy rural roads. Separate insurance claim data from State Farm, which is widely cited in academic research, shows a driver out minding her own business on the wending, bending roads of West Virginia had a 1 in 35 chance of hitting an animal between June 2021 and June 2022, making the Mountain State easily the most dangerous in terms of deer-car collisions. Montana and Michigan were next. D.C. drivers, by contrast, had only a 1 in 907 chance of stopping a buck while driving down Pennsylvania Avenue, or anywhere else. Fun fact: Deer are responsible for at least 69 percent of animal-related accident claims, according to State Farm. Another 12 percent of claims involve unidentified animals, many of which could be deer that bounded off before the driver got a good look at them or were mangled beyond recognition in the crash. The third-most-dangerous animals on the road are undifferentiated rodents, which are cited in 5 percent of all animal-related accident claims. However, State Farm spokesperson Dave Phillips noted that many of the drivers never make contact with said rodent: The vast majority of those accidents occur when motorists swerve to avoid a suicidal squirrel or moseying marmot. Our more calendar-conscious readers will note that peak deer-crash season coincides with another big moment in November: the first week of daylight saving time, which begins the first Sunday of the month. And the University of Washington team has found that the two events are not unrelated. To understand why, we need to spelunk deeper into their data, which breaks new ground by including the exact location, date and hour of all these deer disasters. When we glance at a chart of accidents that includes time of day and time of year, one fact strikes us right between the headlights: Evening, the twilight of each day especially in November is the hour of the Gotterdeermmerung. Conveniently for us, the University of Washington scholars used accident coordinates and some basic weather math to calculate exactly when the sun would have risen or set at each location. It turns out that deer danger skyrockets about 30 minutes after sunset and remains extraordinarily elevated for almost half an hour. Those with deer-behavior expertise say drivers should be on high alert as darkness falls in autumn especially when careening through the deer’s favorite transitional habitats, the forest-edge ecosystem created by roads and other developments. But they urge us to take a lesson from the thousands of people who land in hospitals and body shops each year after attempting to avoid a turtle or chipmunk: If you do see a deer, don’t swerve. “Slow down as much as you can, obviously, coming up to it,” said Karlin Gill of the National Deer Association, a hunting and conservation organization. “But if it’s unavoidable and you’re going to hit the deer, don’t try and swerve out of the way. That can cause an even worse car wreck, and you still might hit the deer regardless.” Deer crashes also rise in the morning, about 30 minutes before sunrise, but the number is significantly lower than after sunset. To understand why, we need to dig deeper into both deer and human activity patterns. Biologist after biologist told us deer are crepuscular, meaning they’re most active at dawn and dusk. When Texas A&M University wildlife scientist Stephen Webb and his colleagues fitted GPS trackers onto white-tailed deer in Oklahoma, they found deer movement peaks at both sunrise and sunset. “Deer, unlike humans, don’t lay down for eight hours at night and then get up and move throughout the day,” said Gill , who, as a hunter, closely examines deer behavior. “They actually go through a cycle where they’ll lay down, bed, get up, eat, lay down, bed, get up, eat, and they’ll do this throughout a 24-hour period.” But if deer are equally active at dawn and dusk, why are they so much more likely to be hit in the evening? To untangle that one, we need to examine another somewhat crepuscular species: the American commuter. Our commutes also peak in the morning and evening, but we’re much more likely to be driving at dusk than we are at dawn, and we stay on the roads even as darkness falls, and the deer start moving often squarely into our headlights. It’s a matter of visibility. Deer are just as active two hours before dusk as they are two hours after, yet we’re about 14 times more likely to hit a deer after sundown than we are before. And, as Cunningham notes, right at the peak of the whitetail rut, we throw another variable into the stew: We end daylight saving time. Suddenly, as far as the deer are concerned, our 6 p.m. commute happens an hour later. Millions of drivers find themselves contending with lower visibility just as sex hormones flood the local deer population. “It’s like one of the grandest-scale natural experiments that we can come up with, where humans impose these very arbitrary and abrupt changes on the wildlife,” Cunningham told us from his native Tasmania (he’s at the University of Washington as a Fulbright fellow). People living on the far eastern side of a time zone are about 1.35 times as likely to hit a deer as folks on the far western edge, since folks in the east are more likely to be driving home in the dark. Similarly, folks in Northern states, where days are short and darkness rules the winter, are 1.86 times more likely to hit a deer than their friends in America’s sunny South. Taking these effects into account, the University of Washington team estimates that “falling back” causes a 16 percent jump in deer carnage in the weeks after the shift. It’s possible that adopting permanent daylight saving time would thus save the lives of more than 36,000 deer and 33 humans each year. On the down side, chronobiologist Eva Winnebeck of the University of Surrey argues that any gains might be offset by an increase in deaths spurred by the chronic drowsiness that would inevitably set in if our solar-powered circadian rhythms were forced to endure a never-ending disconnect between the sun and clocks set permanently to daylight saving time. Here at the Department of Data, we’ve found a strong connection between happiness and the great outdoors. So, we’re partial to any move that would give us more daylight hours to get out after work and fish, run or dominate the competitive wood-chopping circuit, circadian rhythms be darned.
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Watch out for deer
NCDOT warns motorists across North Carolina to stay alert for deer now that fall has arrived. Every year during late autumn, auto and body shops across the region brace for a bumper crop of business, comprised of an influx of cars with damage from collisions with deer. Beginning in October, roads across the state become hazardous as North Carolina’s deer population fans out, lurking on highway shoulders in search of food and potential mates. It’s the deadliest time of the year for deer, which also pose a particular danger to motorists. Nearly half of vehicle accidents involving white-tail deer occur from October to December. Deer accidents typically begin rising in October, peak in November and begin dropping off after December, according to the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety. Deer are crepuscular mammals, meaning they’re most active at dawn and dusk which, following the onset of daylight savings time, places them near roads and byways precisely when large numbers of residents are commuting to and from work.
NCDOT has some helpful tips for motorists in regard to deer-vehicle crashes:
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- Although it does not decrease the risk of being in a crash, wearing a seat belt gives you a better chance of avoiding or minimizing injuries if you hit a deer or other animal.
- Always maintain a safe amount of distance between your vehicle and others, especially at night. If the vehicle ahead of you hits a deer, you could also become involved in a crash.
- Slowdown in areas posted with deer crossing signs and in heavily wooded areas, especially during the late afternoon and evening.
- Most deer-vehicle crashes occur where deer are more likely to travel, near bridges or overpasses, railroad tracks, streams, and ditches. Be vigilant when passing through potentially risky landscapes.
- Drive with high beams on when possible and watch for eyes reflecting in the headlights.
- Deer often travel in groups, so if you see one deer near a road, be alert that others may be around.
- If you see deer near a road, slow down and blow your horn with one long blast.
- Do not swerve to avoid a collision with deer. This could cause you to lose control of your vehicle, increasing the risk of it flipping over, veering into oncoming traffic, or overcorrecting and running off the road and causing a more serious crash.
Officials say the most crashes occur between 6 p.m. and midnight, accounting for about 45% of the overall total. With the end of daylight savings time at 2 a.m. Sunday, Nov. 1, the time shift increases the chance of deer being by roadways when drivers are traveling in the dark, especially for their evening commute. If your vehicle does strike a deer, officials say do not touch the animal. A frightened and wounded deer can be dangerous or further injure itself. Get your vehicle off the road if possible and call 911.
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Factoid That May Interest Only Me
Gators’ more frequent appearances make splash along coast
Did you hear the one about the alligator? An alligator walks into … a road, a pool, a miniature golf course, onto a beach, underneath a car, up to the front door of a storefront, by a back entrance of a police station. Stop me if you read about this while perusing the headlines of your local newspaper, heard about it on the 6 o’clock news, or saw it plastered across social media platforms this past summer. Alligators have made quite the splash (pun intended) in recent months here in southeastern North Carolina, where seemingly numerous public appearances by these living dinosaurs have produced dramatic headlines and videos shared not only across the state, but the country. But these typically reclusive reptiles aren’t looking for all the attention they’ve been getting, experts say. They just want to be left alone. The problem is, they’re being squeezed out of seclusion as housing developments and retail centers continue to crop up along the coast. “The ever-growing population along the coast of North Carolina is the biggest threat to wildlife in general,” said John Harrelson, a wildlife biologist with the North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission. “Habitat loss is the biggest threat to wildlife in general, not just alligators, and when people move in and we build communities in places that haven’t historically had people, then that leads to lots of interactions.” And the more interactions that occur, the more comfortable alligators become around people. Harrelson puts alligators into one of two categories: country alligators and city alligators. Country alligators inhabit areas up the Northeast Cape Fear River. He said that those alligators generally try their best to steer clear of humans, he said. But city alligators get used to seeing people and, just like squirrels, birds, deer, and other animals, they become habituated, “realizing that people, for the most part, don’t mean them any harm and that there’s nothing to be worried about,” Harrelson said. Think of it like a cost-benefit analysis where an alligator weighs the risk of being around people and decides whether the reward is worth the risk. “And often times the reward is great enough,” Harrelson said. While development strips away their natural habitat, it tends to provide pockets of prime real estate for alligators in the form of retention ponds. Harrelson works in the commission’s District 4, which includes Brunswick County, and is home to a reported 30 scenic golf courses (think about all of the water hazards well, not a hazard from a gator’s point of view on just one of those courses). Brunswick, Columbus, Craven, New Hanover, Onslow, and Pender counties are home to the largest populations of American alligators in North Carolina and their turf runs from the state’s coastal plains to Texas. With its barrier island beaches, proximity to Wilmington and Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, and its numerous golf courses, Brunswick County has become a draw for retirees who, for many, move in from areas where there are no alligators. Pair that with the influx of tourists who flock to the county each summer Oak Island’s population more than quintuples between May and August and odds are high people are going to encounter alligators. Boiling Spring Lakes Police Capt. Windy Hager knows that when tourism season picks up, so too do the number of calls going into the Brunswick County town’s law enforcement center about alligator sightings. “When it’s warmer (alligators) become more active and, when you’ve got people who are not familiar with alligators they get a little excited about, ‘Oh, there’s one in the lake!’ Well, yes, that’s where they live and that’s what we have to tell them a lot of times,” Hager said. Hager has lived in the area more than 10 years. She’s accustomed to seeing alligators pretty regularly in their own habitat. But one had to be removed from a swimming pool a couple of weeks ago and the unnamed storm that pummeled Brunswick County with catastrophic rainfall Sept. 16 means there’s a lot of water in places that were previously dry. “I know that there’s two (alligators) in what used to be somebody’s front yard right now in the city because their front yard is flooded,” Hager said. “But they’re just doing their thing and the people who live there are giving them their space. The people are not messing with them and the alligators aren’t messing with the people so they’re sharing space right now.” Two days before he spoke in a telephone interview with Coastal Review, Sunset Beach Police Animal Control Officer Bill Arp had removed a small alligator hanging out underneath a car. “They’ll wind up in people’s garages and on people’s porches, underneath decks, under cars. We find them all over the place,” he said. “Unfortunately, because of such huge development down here, their habitat is starting to shrink and that’s what’s happening. People are calling us and wondering, ‘Why’s it under my car? Why are they on my porch? Why are they in my garage?’ Well, that’s why because the development is robbing them of their other habitat.” Alligator Do’s and Don’ts If an alligator settles in an area near you, wildlife and law enforcement officials have tips on how to safely cohabitate. “A lot of people think, even with birds and deer, it’s nice to feed them,” Arp said. “But alligators, you don’t. Everybody knows an alligator is an apex predator. They’re nice to watch. They’re nice to take pictures of, but to feed them, that’s not a good idea.” Remember what Harrelson said earlier in the story about city alligators? “Individual people feeding alligators is the worst thing you can do,” he said. “Alligators are wild animals and they’ve got to work for their food. An easy meal means, ‘hey I don’t have to continue to fail and fail and make all these attempts when I’m not successful. I can just wait for this person to walk over and, if I approach them, they’re going to give me chicken or bread or marshmallows, a fish scrap or whatever else they’ve got.’ We deal with this all the time, particularly with folks who aren’t locals.” It is illegal to feed alligators. It is also illegal to kill them. American alligators are protected by the Endangered Species Act as threatened. In North Carolina, a permit is required to hunt alligators. The monthlong season is limited to population control at the request of municipalities in Brunswick, Carteret, Columbus, Craven, Hyde, Jones, New Hanover, Onslow, Pamlico, and Pender counties, according to the WRC website. “The Commission does not plan to issue permits to take American alligators, outside of municipality requested population reduction hunts, until further research is conducted to determine the conditions under which alligator populations would be sustained while allowing limited harvest,” the site states. Harrelson said that alligators are relocated only as a last resort because they, like other wildlife, have a propensity to travel long distances to return to where they were captured. “This is something that we face ongoing and, as biologists, something that we have to figure out how to address going forward because our agency isn’t going to pick up and move animals,” Harrelson said. “We want to let wildlife be wildlife for as long as we can and maintain the ecosystems that are out there.” As people build, alligators move. Males can occupy areas greater than 2 miles so, when they move, they’re crossing roads, ditches, and yards. An alligator may be removed from a property when it is considered a nuisance at least 4 feet long and poses a threat to people, pets, or property. To report a potential nuisance alligator, call the N.C. Wildlife Helpline at 866-318-2401. Experts say simply spraying an alligator with a water hose usually prompts the animal to move away. If you’re taking a walk and spot an alligator in or near your path, give the alligator a wide berth and go around it. Never walk up to one or try to touch one. “When an alligator is on a sidewalk or up on a roadway, he’s not hunting, he’s not searching out food. If we give them an opportunity to make that move on their own, most of the time, they will,” Harrelson said. “Our biggest thing, of course, is to keep people safe and then let the animals be animals. That’s what we’re always striving toward.”
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More than bearly existing: Why black bears are thriving at the NC coast
Black bears at the beach? Yep, and they are some of the biggest in the world. Here’s how NC brought the animals back from the brink, and why they are now thriving
The North Carolina coast is well-known for its wildlife. Dolphins are frequently seen entertaining boaters and beachgoers, and a lucky few even get to see manatees traversing the Intracoastal Waterway and whales migrating offshore. On land, bobcats and turkeys can often surprise folks, and in the sky ospreys can often put on a show while hunting for fish in local waterways. Eagles are even beginning to show up in greater numbers, with a pair that raised an eaglet at New Hanover County’s Airlie Gardens this year causing quite a social media stir. But bears? Unless you’re a farmer or a hunter, it might come as a surprise to find out that more black bears live in the state’s coastal plain than in the higher elevations of Western N.C., where the Appalachians rise up and Great Smoky Mountain National Park is the nation’s most popular national park and Ursus americanus is its unofficial mascot. Here are some things you might now know about one of Eastern North Carolina’s most unique residents, and how climate change could be changing how bears behave in the coastal region.
Beach bears?
The ability of the bear to bounce back in the state is one of North Carolina’s great wildlife success stories. Unregulated hunting and loss of habitat led to bears being driven into the most isolated pockets of swamp forests and mountain areas for most of last century. But starting in the 1970s with the establishment of bear sanctuaries, strict management strategies, and educating the public about the state’s omnivorous residents, bear numbers have surged back. Today, more than 20,000 bears are estimated to roam North Carolina, and more than half are in the eastern part of the state. Coastal North Carolina is also home to some of the largest black bears in the world, thanks to an ample food supply of farmers’ crops, a relatively mild climate and many large, protected areas like state game lands such as Holly Shelter in Pender County and federal wildlife refuges like Alligator River near the Outer Banks that offer the bears valuable habitat. The size and number of Eastern N.C.’s black bears also fuels a successful hunting season and helps support the economy in many rural areas. According to the N.C. Wildlife Resources Commission, the numbers of bears harvested by hunters has increased from fewer than 300 in 1980 to more than 4,500 on 2023, the last year figures are available. In the Wilmington area for 2023, hunters took 34 bears in Brunswick County, seven in New Hanover County, and 92 in Pender County. The leading state that year was Hyde County near the Outer Banks, with 288 animals harvested by hunters.
Bears on the hunt
But humans aren’t the only ones on the hunt these days. Bears are beginning to fatten up as they prepare to hibernate in the late fall and winter. In a process called hyperphagia, which means “extreme appetite,” bears will travel long distances and be very opportunistic in looking for food sources. “In late summer through fall, black bears are consuming a variety of hard and soft mast species, from acorns and hickory nuts to pokeberry, cherry, grapes and black gum, said wildlife commission biologist Jenna Malzahn in a release. They’ll also take advantage of agricultural crops, such as soybeans and standing corn, as well as bird feeders and unsecured garbage and compost. With this level of food consumption, which can last through early winter, bears can put on 3 pounds per day and gain anywhere from 20% to close to 100% of their summer weight, according to the commission. With bears traveling so much, human-animal interactions including vehicle strikes peak over the next few weeks.
Will they hibernate at the N.C. coast?
Maybe. But they’ll still often eat even if the weather doesn’t trigger them to hibernate for very long or at all. Even in warmer climates, such as our state, a bears biological clock will still activate this fall feeding frenzy, even for those bears that hibernate briefly or not at all, as natural food scarcity in winter months, not temperatures, has been a key driver for activating the hyperphagia and hibernation process, said Colleen Olfenbuttel, the wildlife commission’s game mammals and surveys supervisor. Even bears that won’t den until January or February still look for food practically around the clock and eat as much as they can find. However, in areas where bears have found dependable year-round supplies of human-provided foods, they may not hibernate at all but will eat as if they are going to. Female bears at the coast have generally been recorded hibernating longer than males, and will give birth during their hibernation, only waking up and emerging with her cubs in the spring when they are able to walk and feed on solid food. Males may den for short periods but may also exhibit lethargic behavior during the winter if they stay awake.
Where will they hibernate in Eastern N.C.?
With few rock formations to den in or under in Eastern N.C., coastal bears will often hibernate in thick vegetation on the ground. They also have been found to use tree cavities and burrow under fallen trees and logs. Bears finding accommodations under abandoned or seldom used human structures, like porches and barns, also has been observed, according to the wildlife commission.
How will a warming climate impact bears?
As warmer weather becomes the norm, North Carolina’s coastal black bear might start to mimic behavior patterns of bears in other Southern states that already deal with a hotter, year-round climate. According to the N.C. State Climate Office, five of North Carolina’s top six warmest years have happened since 2016, and each year in the past decade ranks among the top 22 warmest on record dating back to 1895. That could mean shorter, or no, hibernation for male bears in the state, increased pressure on winter food supplies, and a greater chance of human-bear conflicts as both species share the same space for longer periods of time.
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Black bears are common along the NC coast.
Here’s why and what to know about their habits.
More bears live in the state’s coastal plain than in North Carolina’s mountains. They also are generally larger. And yes, they do hibernate
When people think of bears in North Carolina, most thoughts probably drift to the mountains in the higher elevations of the state and places like Great Smoky Mountain National Park. But black bears the only bear species found in the Tar Heel State are found across North Carolina, and their population is actually larger in the state’s coastal plain than in the mountains. Potentially even more surprising to some is that many bears at the coast, especially females, hibernate like their brethren where frost and snow is a lot more common.
Bears at the coast?
Yes, there are bears lots of them near North Carolina’s beaches and in its coastal forests and swamps. The ability of the bear to bounce back in the state is one of North Carolina’s great wildlife success stories. Unregulated hunting and loss of habitat led to bears being driven into the most isolated pockets of swamp forests and mountain areas for most of the last century. But starting in the 1970s with the establishment of bear sanctuaries, strict management strategies, and educating the public about the state’s omnivorous residents, bear numbers have surged back. Today, more than 20,000 bears are estimated to roam North Carolina, and more than half are in the eastern part of the state. Coastal North Carolina is also home to some of the largest black bears in the world, thanks to an ample food supply of farmers’ crops, a relatively mild climate, and many large, protected areas like state game lands and federal wildlife refuges that offer the bears valuable habitat. According to the wildlife commission, the largest bear ever killed in North Carolina was an 880-pound male taken in Craven County in 1998. The state’s propensity for lots of bears also attracts hunters and fuels economies in many rural areas, with more than 4,000 animals taken during the 2022 bear season up 11% over 2021 figures. Of those, more than 2,500 bears were taken along the coast. Around the Wilmington area, hunters harvested 34 bears in Brunswick County, 92 in Pender County, and seven in New Hanover County. The popularity, size, and sheer number of bears in Eastern North Carolina also has spawned its own festival, the National Black Bear Festival, which takes place every June in Plymouth, Washington County.
What is hibernation?
In its very basic form, animals enter hibernation as a way to reduce their metabolism in response to a decrease in food supply and sometimes falling temperatures. When bears, in this case, enter hibernation, their internal body clocks slow down. That leads to lower heart rates, reduced breathing, and lower oxygen consumption. The animal’s temperature also drops. According to biologists, this can be by as much as 15 degrees for bears. To prepare for hibernation, bears step up their eating, putting on up to 3 pounds a day in the fall and sometimes into winter. That can mean foraging for a meal for up to 20 hours a day, and they are typically most active at dawn and dusk.
Why do N.C. coastal bears hibernate?
While black bears in colder, northern climates can hibernate for six months or longer, it is generally for shorter periods in North Carolina. But they do hibernate even along the N.C. coast, especially female bears. Males may den for short periods but may also exhibit lethargic behavior during the winter if they stay awake. “Bears studied in eastern North Carolina by radio-telemetry entered dens as early as November and as late as January. These same bears exited dens as early as February and as late as April,” states information on the wildlife commission’s website. “This results in the possibility of bear sightings and roadkills in all months and the misconception that coastal bears do not hibernate. Only human disturbance interrupts these periods of hibernation in North Carolina’s bears.” Females will give birth during their hibernation, only waking up and emerging with her cubs in the spring when they are able to walk and feed on solid food.
Where do they hibernate?
With few rock formations to den in or under in Eastern N.C., coastal bears will often hibernate in thick vegetation on the ground. They also have been found to use tree cavities and burrow under fallen trees and logs. Bears finding accommodations under abandoned or seldom used human structures, like porches and barns, also has been observed.
What about the impact of climate change on N.C. bears?
Scientists are clear that North Carolina is facing a warming climate in the coming years. The only real question is by how much temperatures will increase. As warmer weather becomes the norm, North Carolina’s coastal black bear might start to mimic behavior patterns of bears in other Southern states that already deal with a hotter, year-round climate. That could mean shorter, or no, hibernation for male bears, increased pressure on winter food supplies, and a greater chance of human-bear conflicts as both species share the same space for longer periods of time. But black bears also have proven time and again to be very adaptable to changing conditions, including human encroachment on their habitats. That ability has seen them spread to all of North Carolina’s 100 counties, with number increasing even as the state’s population also continues to rise quickly.
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Bears are smart animals
Time to be smarter than the bear. Elimination of regular and easy food sources is the best deterrent and will cause him/her to move out of our location faster than any other reason. If the bear discovers the pattern of garbage cans going out in the evening, he/she will look for the cans each evening. Consider putting garbage cans out in the morning hours just before the truck arrives so that the bear does not discover cans full of food each week. Please reconsider feeding any other animals during warmer months with an outdoor supply of food because the bear will find it and eat what you put out, thus strengthening his/her reason to remain here. Bird feeders may also be destroyed for the bear to secure the stored grains.
Consistent patterns in OR will help to move the bear to new territory. If some food sources remain available, he/she will find them and remain here. Keep the food sources out of his/her reach. Please consider staying with this habit until the acorns begin to drop in the fall. We have few oak trees within OR, so that source of food is limited. The bear will seek an area with a greater source of food prior to winter.
Bears roam approximately ten miles in all directions to obtain food or shelter. If sources outside of the OR provide him/her with regular food, and our area provides the best shelter, he/ she will remain until late fall once again. Be aware of choices and be aware of walking in forested areas with dogs, etc. Black bears will avoid humans and dogs, but if you accidentally run into one at close proximity, do the following:
If you and he /she are walking toward each other, change your direction and do not run.Constantly check over the shoulder to see if the bear is following you or continuing in another direction.
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- If you happen to get REALLY close to a bear, you can make yourself look as large as possible and yell loudly. A black bear will usually change direction.
- If there is a bear cub with a mother bear, stay as far away as possible. She will protect the cub at all costs, and you can be in great danger.
- Review the pamphlet put out by the NC Department of Wildlife:
https://www.ncwildlife.org/media/1458/download?attachment
Stay aware, stay smart, and stay safe.
Storm Events –
Hurricane Vehicle Decals
Property owners were provided with four (4) decals that were included in this month’s water bill. It is important that you place your decals in your vehicle or in a safe place. A $10 fee will be assessed to anyone who needs to obtain either additional or replacement decals. Decals will not be issued in the 24-hour period before an anticipated order of evacuation.
The decals are your passes to get back onto the island to check your property in the event that an emergency would necessitate restricting access to the island. Decals must be displayed in the driver side lower left-hand corner of the windshield, where they are not obstructed by any other items. Officials must be able to clearly read the decal from outside the vehicle.
Property owners without a valid decal will not be allowed on the island during restricted access. No other method of identification is accepted in an emergency situation. Click here to visit the Town website to find out more information regarding decals and emergency situations.
NC General Statute 166A-19.22
Power of municipalities and counties to enact ordinances to deal with states of emergency.
Synopsis – The governing body may impose by declaration or enacted ordinance, prohibitions, and restrictions during a state of emergency. This includes the prohibition and restriction of movements of people in public places, including imposing a curfew; directing or compelling the voluntary or mandatory evacuation of all or part of the population, controlling ingress and egress of an emergency area, and providing for the closure of streets, roads, highways, bridges, public vehicular areas. All prohibitions and restrictions imposed by declaration or ordinance shall take effect immediately upon publication of the declaration unless the declaration sets a later time. The prohibitions and restrictions shall expire when they are terminated by the official or entity that imposed them, or when the state of emergency terminates.
Violation – Any person who violates any provisions of an ordinance or a declaration enacted or declared pursuant to this section shall be guilty of a Class 2 misdemeanor.
Hot Button Issues
Subjects that are important to people and about which they have strong opinions
Climate
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There’s something happening here
What it is ain’t exactly clear
Top Scientists Find Growing Evidence That Greenhouse Gases Are, in Fact, a Danger
The assessment contradicts the Trump administration’s legal arguments for relaxing pollution rules.
The nations leading scientific advisory body issued a major report on Wednesday detailing the strongest evidence to date that carbon dioxide, methane and other planet-warming greenhouse gases are threatening human health. The report, published by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, is significant because it could complicate the Trump administrations efforts to revoke a landmark scientific determination, known as the endangerment finding, that underpins the federal governments legal authority to control the pollution that is driving climate change. The finding dates to 2009, when the Environmental Protection Agency concluded that planet-warming greenhouse gases pose a threat to public health and welfare and so should be regulated under the Clean Air Act. The Obama and Biden administrations used that determination to set strict limits on greenhouse gas emissions from cars, power plants and other industrial sources of pollution. But in July, the Trump administration proposed to rescind the endangerment finding and contended that subsequent research had cast significant doubt on its accuracy. The proposal is one of President Trumps most significant steps yet to derail federal climate efforts. If the move is held up in court, future administrations would have no authority under the Clean Air Act to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from the burning of fossil fuels. The new National Academies assessment contradicts the administrations claims. The 136-page report, assembled by a committee of two dozen scientists, concludes that the original endangerment finding was accurate and has stood the test of time. It says that there is now even stronger evidence that rising greenhouse gas levels can threaten public health and well-being, and that new risks have been uncovered. The report notes that multiple lines of evidence now show that human activities such as the burning of fossil fuels and deforestation are producing greenhouse gases that are heating the planet, and that climate change is exacerbating a wide variety of health risks like intense heat waves and increased wildfire smoke. Climate-driven changes in temperature and rainfall patterns have also led to negative effects on crops and less water availability in some places, among other disruptions. The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine is a nongovernmental body that was originally chartered in 1863 by Abraham Lincoln to advise the nation on scientific and medical questions. The influential body issues roughly 200 reports per year on a range of topics from particle physics to neurobiology, and its members are elected each year. In August, the National Academies announced that it was fast-tracking its study on the endangerment finding so that it could inform the E.P.A.‘s decision-making process. Under federal law, the E.P.A. needs to solicit public comment on its proposal to revoke the finding and then must respond to all of the comments it receives. Some Republicans in Congress criticized the National Academies for racing to complete the report. Representative James Comer of Kentucky, the leading Republican on the House Oversight Committee, wrote in a recent letter to the body that the decision was a blatant partisan act to undermine the Trump Administration and said that some of the members overseeing the report had shown partisan bias. The committee that oversaw the report was led by Shirley Tilghman, an emeritus professor of molecular biology and public affairs and former president of Princeton University. While the committee was largely made up of academics, it also included a former employee of Chevron and a former executive at Cummins, a manufacturer of truck engines. This study was undertaken with the ultimate aim of informing the E.P.A., following its call for public comments, as it considers the status of the endangerment finding, Dr. Tilghman said in a statement. We are hopeful that the evidence summarized here shows the strong base of scientific evidence available to inform sound decision-making. In response to the report, Carolyn Holran, an E.P.A. spokeswoman, said, The endangerment finding has been used by the Obama and Biden administrations to justify trillions of dollars of greenhouse gas regulations covering new motor vehicles and new motor vehicle engines. As we saw in the 16 intervening years since the endangerment finding was made, many of the extremely pessimistic predictions and assumptions E.P.A. relied upon have not materialized as expected. She said the E.P.A. looks forward to responding to a diverse array of perspectives on this issue, when the public comment period ends on Sept. 22. To justify its proposal, the E.P.A. cited a variety of legal and technical arguments, saying among other things that the greenhouse gas emissions from vehicles on American roads are only a small sliver of total global greenhouse gas emissions. But the agency also tried to argue with the mainstream scientific view that climate change poses a significant risk to humanity. It cited a report that the Energy Department commissioned by a working group of five prominent researchers who dissent from the mainstream scientific view of climate change. They were handpicked by Energy Secretary Chris Wright and while their report acknowledged that the Earth is warming, it said that climate change is less damaging economically than commonly believed. In response, a team of more than 85 scientists wrote a 439-page reply, saying that the Energy Department analysis was riddled with errors and cherry-picked data to fit the president’s political agenda. Separately, two environmental groups have filed a lawsuit in federal court charging that the formation of the Energy Departments working group violated the Federal Advisory Committee Act and that the E.P.A. should not rely on its analysis. That case is ongoing. Mr. Wright disbanded the working group this month in the wake of the lawsuit. But the Energy Department has said it has no plans to withdraw its report. In a statement, Andrea Woods, an Energy Department spokeswoman, said that the agency had determined that the working group had achieved its purpose, namely to catalyze broader discussion about the certainties and uncertainties of current climate science. We will continue to engage in the debate in favor of a more science-based and less ideological conversation around climate science. Some legal experts said that the Trump administrations attempts to argue against longstanding scientific findings on climate change could create problems in court for its deregulatory efforts. It might have been a better strategy if they tried to sidestep the arguments about climate science altogether, said Patrick Parenteau, an emeritus professor at the Vermont Law and Graduate School. Instead, they’ve taken shots at climate science and thats triggered an enormous response from scientists, and now they’re going to have to carefully respond to all of these comments, Mr. Parenteau added. And if they shortchange any of them, that creates a legal vulnerability. Courts are going to be very leery if the E.P.A. tries to ignore or reject the findings of the National Academies of Sciences.
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Flood Insurance Program
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National Flood Insurance Program: Reauthorization
Congress must periodically renew the NFIP’s statutory authority to operate. On November 12, 2025, the president signed legislation passed by Congress that extends the National Flood Insurance Program’s (NFIP’s) authorization to January 30, 2026.
Congress must now reauthorize the NFIP
by no later than 11:59 pm on January 30, 2026.
GenX
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Homeowners Insurance
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Hurricane Season
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Hurricane season runs from June 1 through November 30
No hurricanes hit the U.S. this year, but the storms that formed sent a warning
It’s the first time in a decade no hurricane has made U.S. landfall, even as near-record high ocean heat fueled monster storms.
This year marks the first time in a decade that there hasn’t been a hurricane landfall in the United States. That’s true even as several massive and menacing storms formed, many tracking perilously close to the United States. The Atlantic season, which officially ends Nov. 30, saw the likes of Hurricanes Erin and Imelda, as well as Melissa, one of the most powerful Atlantic hurricanes on record that devastated Jamaica. But it didn’t take a hurricane landfall to have dangerous consequences in the United States. In July, the remnants of Tropical Storm Barry contributed to deadly and devastating flooding in the Texas Hill Country and Tropical Storm Chantal caused destructive and fatal flooding in North Carolina, amid a global trend toward a moister atmosphere. “This season was a weird one,” said Philip Klotzbach, a senior hurricane research scientist at Colorado State University. Three storms catapulted to Category 5 intensity — the second-highest number on record for storms of that intensity within a single season. Four storms reached at least Category 4 strength. Four storms also rapidly intensified — Erin, Gabrielle, Humberto and Melissa — meaning that their winds accelerated by at least 35 mph in a day. Klotzbach emphasized that even a small number of intense storms could be more hazardous than many milder ones. “If those massive storms happen to hit something, the potential damage is a lot higher,” he added. In total there were 13 storms — one less than the long-term average. Early forecasts predicted as many as 19 storms this season, well above the number that have since formed. The exact number of storms is challenging to predict months in advance, so scientists often focus more on accumulated cyclone energy (ACE), which is a measure of storm wind strength and duration. Klotzbach added that the year had slightly more ACE than normal, even with fewer storms, underscoring the strength of the systems that did form. No tropical activity is expected in the next week, according to the National Hurricane Center.
Fueling the monster storms
This year’s powerful array of storms was linked by a factor that lies deep below the ocean — high ocean heat. This excess heat is fuel for storm intensification. More than 80 percent of the Atlantic was covered by above-average ocean heat during the season, the third-highest amount on record since records began in 1958, behind only 2023 and 2024. Part of a concerning trend, the near-record high ocean heat — in the top 10 percent of historical observations — covered almost 40 percent of the Atlantic basin. Before 2022, this metric had never been higher than 30 percent, making the recent ascension of ocean heat particularly notable. Instead of churning up cooler waters from below, violent storm winds instead found more warm water beneath the surface, enabling storms to remain or become more intense. But high ocean heat alone doesn’t cause storms to form. A tropical storm begins as a cluster of thunderstorms. When that cluster taps into an unstable atmosphere — one in which warm, buoyant air is rising — it can organize and intensify. That instability is driven by the temperature difference between the warm ocean surface and the much colder upper atmosphere. This vertical gradient, known as the lapse rate, helps set what experts call the potential intensity — the upper limit on how strong a hurricane’s winds can get. “The thing that really powers the hurricane is how fast you can transfer heat from the ocean to the atmosphere. The bigger the temperature difference, the faster you can transfer heat. The faster you can transfer heat, the more powerful the hurricane can be,” said Kerry Emanuel, a professor of atmospheric science at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. But that gradient was not particularly strong this year in some parts of the Atlantic, illustrating why this temperature difference matters more than the sea temperature alone. And it forms part of the reason a warming planet may have fewer tropical storms, but more intense ones overall. “This past summer, the sea surface temperatures across much of the tropical Atlantic were warmer than normal, which is part of what led people to predict that there would be a very busy season,” Emanuel said. But because the air above was also warm, potential intensity was lower than normal. That was partly responsible for why there were fewer than normal storms originating in certain parts of the tropical Atlantic, he said. Then there was the Caribbean, where monster Hurricane Melissa formed. There, the potential intensity was high. There’s little to suggest that this extra ocean heat will subside in 2026, which means it will probably be a key factor again next hurricane season. However, one climate driver that contributed to conditions that were more conducive to hurricanes in 2024 and 2025 — La Niña — will probably fade early next year. It’s unusual to have at least two consecutive years without a hurricane landfall in the United States. It has happened only six times since records began in 1851, the last times in 2009 and 2010.
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Inlet Hazard Areas
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Lockwood Folly Inlet
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Seismic Testing / Offshore Drilling
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Offshore Wind Farms
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Things I Think I Think
Eating out is one of the great little joys of life.
Restaurant Review:
The Dinner Club visits a new restaurant once a month. Ratings reflect the reviewer’s reaction to food, ambience and service, with price taken into consideration.
///// October 2025
Name: La Cucina Italian Grill
Cuisine: Italian
Location: 1780 Chandlers Lane, Sunset Beach NC
Contact: 910.579.9777 / https://www.lacucinasunsetbeach.com/
Food: Average / Very Good / Excellent / Exceptional
Service: Efficient / Proficient / Professional / Expert
Ambience: Drab / Plain / Distinct / Elegant
Cost: $25 Inexpensive <=20 / Moderate <=26 / Expensive <=35 / Exorbitant <=60
Rating: Three Stars
La Cucina is a local classic Italian restaurant, serving traditional Italian cuisine with a broad-based menu that offers something for everyone. It’s a comfortable, friendly, casual environment, nothing fancy, but very welcoming and the wait staff are very accommodating. Since it’s a small busy place, with seating for only fifty (50) people, if you want to eat there making reservations is advisable. We have always enjoyed the dining experience there. They are serving some of the best Italian cuisine in the area, it’s as good as it gets here. The food is very good, the portions are generous, and the prices for both the food and wine are reasonable. It’s an exceptional value, what’s not to like?
Dining Guide – Local
Old places, New faces
Name: The Wharf
Location: 1045 B-Var Road, Supply NC
Contact: 910.842.9999 / https://www.thewharfinhb.com/
This spot on the intercoastal waterway was once known as Betty’s Waterfront Restaurant. SmacNally’s has permanently closed, after just two (2) years, and a new eatery The Wharf was announced for the space.
Dining Guide – Local * Lou’s Views
Dining Guide – North * Lou’s Views
Dining Guide – South * Lou’s Views
Restaurant Reviews – North * Lou’s Views
Restaurant Reviews – South * Lou’s Views
Book Review:
Read several books from The New York Times best sellers fiction list monthly
Selection represents this month’s pick of the litter
WILD DARK SHORE by Charlotte McConaghy
The novel is set on Shearwater Island, a remote subantarctic desert island that serves as a research station. Scientists have been studying environmental changes there, but the island is receding under rising seas and will soon disappear. The researchers have recently departed, leaving behind a family of four who are the last caretakers. They are preparing to evacuate the island with the world’s largest seed bank. One day, a shipwrecked woman washes ashore unconscious but alive. She recovers under the family’s care, but an atmosphere of tension and distrust arises among them. Facing intensifying storms, the family and the woman must decide if they can trust each other to protect the precious seeds and overcome their past tragedies to build a new future together.
That’s it for this newsletter
See you next month
Lou’s Views . HBPOIN
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- Gather and disseminate information
- Identify the issues and determine how they affect you
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