Things Are Rough in Rodanthe
Recently we were in the Outer Banks (OBX, for marketing purposes) and told you about the Wild Horses up near Corolla which is north of Rodanthe. If you enjoy fine beaches and the ocean, I highly recommend a visit. Go very soon, but wait until about a month after Labour Day to avoid the crowds.
I suggested "soon" because this long strand of sand along the east coast is disappearing. I mentioned a while back that in some areas of the U.S. it is now difficult to get home insurance; this is one of those areas.
The picture above is from this article: "Another N.C. Beach House Just Fell Into the Ocean: Others May Follow." Brady Dennis, Washington Post, May 28, 2024. It begins this way and the section includes a rather odd metaphor in this context:
Another home has crumbled into the sea in Rodanthe, N.C., the scenic Outer Banks community where rising seas and relentless erosion have claimed a growing number of houses and forced some property owners to take drastic measures to retreat from the oceanfront....
The demise of the five-bedroom house, which county records show had stood since 1970, makes it the sixth house to topple along that part of the national seashore over the past four years, the agency said.
“Another one bit the dust,” David Hallac, superintendent of the Cape Hatteras National Seashore, said in an interview. And it probably won’t be the last, as many homes in the area are perilously close to the surf. “This situation will continue.”
Septic Problems in the South
That picture is from the same article and there is a link in it to another article that indicates that the septic tank, around which those waves are crashing, is something to else to worry about. The water level is rising in areas throughout the south, compromising the septic systems which exist in very large numbers in states like Florida. For more: "A Hidden Threat: Fast-Rising Seas Could Swamp Septic Systems in Parts of the South," Brady Dennis, et al. Washington Post, May 22, 2024. Here is a bit of the bad news:
"On the worst days, when the backyard would flood and the toilet would gurgle and the smell of sewage hung thick in the air, Monica Arenas would flee to her mother-in-law’s home to use the bathroom or wash laundry.
“It was a nightmare,” Arenas, 41, recalled one evening in the modest house she shares with her husband and teenage daughter several miles north of downtown Miami....
For all the obvious challenges facing South Florida as sea levels surge, one serious threat to public health and the environment remains largely out of sight, but everywhere:
Septic tanks.
Along those coastlines, swelling seas are driving water tables higher and creating worries in places where septic systems abound, but where officials often lack reliable data about their location or how many might already be compromised.
“These are ticking time bombs under the ground that, when they fail, will pollute,” said Andrew Wunderley, executive director of the nonprofit Charleston Waterkeeper, which monitors water quality in the Lowcountry of South Carolina...
To work properly, septic systems need to sit above an adequate amount of dry soil that can filter contaminants from wastewater before it reaches local waterways and underground drinking water sources. But in many communities, that buffer is vanishing....
An estimated 120,000 septic systems remain in Miami-Dade County, their subterranean concrete boxes and drain fields a relic of the area’s feverish growth generations ago. Of those, the county estimated in 2018, about half are at risk of being “periodically compromised” during severe storms or particularly wet years.
Miami, where seas have risen six inches since 2010, offers a high-profile example of a predicament that parts of the southeast Atlantic and Gulf coasts are confronting — and one scientists say will become only more pervasive — as waters continue to rise.
Rising seas will only exacerbate the problem, he added. “As the water table gets higher, all bets are off.”
Miami-Dade County is racing to replace as many septic tanks as possible, as quickly as possible. But it is a tedious, expensive and daunting task, one that officials say will ultimately cost billions of dollars they don’t yet have.
The Bonus:
To take us away from the bad news, consider "Rodanthe" which is a rather odd name. The place was originally called "Chicamacomico" by the Indigenous, but the derivation of "Rodanthe" is unknown. Now you are probably wondering how to pronounce it and you should say it this way: row-DAN-thee.
This gets me to the real bonus and again to the subject of libraries. While I plan to bring up the topic of "Names" (particularly the problematic ones) again, I will say here that we encountered a lot of interesting ones, like "Fuquay-Varina" also in North Carolina. Click on that link to find out how the simple "Piney Woods" became "Fuquay-Varina." If you want to actually hear how these words are pronounced, visit this link provided by the Wilson Library at the University of North Carolina.
Talk Like a Tar Heel (North Carolina Place Names)
Talk Like a Tar Heel (North Carolina Place Names)
Fuquay-Varina sounds like: FEW-kway vuh-REEE-nuh. Listen here to hear it.
