The Outer Banks are a long strip of barrier islands off North Carolina’s mainland coast. Technically sandbars, these islands formed from deposited sand and sediment carried there by the Atlantic Ocean. Coastal erosion is accelerating due to the sandbars’ natural migration, climate change, loss of maritime forest cover and sea level rise. This is seen most dramatically on Hatteras Island, at the tip of Cape Hatteras and the farthest east of all the OBX islands.
In Buxton, NC, one of five villages on Hatteras Island, local photographer Daniel Pullen documents the dynamic nature of weather events and their impact on the local community. As protective dunes erode, Buxton’s shifting shoreline brings even more properties ever closer to collapsing into the ocean.
Their loss contributes to the struggles facing Buxton’s tourism-dependent economy. Carol White Dillon, owner of the decades-old seaside Outer Banks Motel, delves into the cascading effects of coastal erosion on the livelihoods of the island’s locals.
Together, Pullen and Dillon provide insight into two different approaches to addressing coastal erosion on Hatteras Island.
