Hurricane Sandy and the beach along Kitty Hawk, North Carolina

Walking along the beach in Kitty Hawk, North Carolina on 4th November 2102. The beach used to be much farther away from the houses. Hurricane Sandy piled a lot of sand from the ocean floor along the beach. 

This is the street next to the row of houses along the beach in Kitty Hawk, North Carolins. The bulldozers were moving the sand, and dumping them into trucks which were taking the sand away somewhere.

It was interesting to visit Kitty Hawk in North Carolina a few days after Hurricane Sandy. Kitty Hawk lies on the eastern edge of the state of North Carolina, and is one of the islands which are part of the barrier islands or the outer banks. According to the National Parks Service these islands are still being created and destroyed by the action of the ocean. The ocean piles up sand along the shore or washes it away.

Kitty Hawk is famous because this was the first place where the Wright brothers flew their aeroplane on 17th December 1903. They had chosen this location because it did not have trees, was windy, and had sand to allow their aircraft to land softly. The original dune from which they flew their aircraft has shifted more than 400 feet in the past 100 years. There is a national monument on top of the dune now, and this dune is now stabilized by the planting of grass. Without the grass, the dune will keep drifting.

One wonders about the people who built their houses on the beach. After the storm, due to the sand being piled on the beach, the ocean waves reach the houses.

The waters were now much closer to the resort and the width of the  beach was pencil thin in Playa del Carmen during Hurricane Sandy.

Interestingly, we were in Playa del Carmen, Mexico a week ago, and saw something similar on the beach. We had been there for a month, and the water was always calm and invited one to wade in it.  Many of the hotels have rows of chairs on the beach. Normally they are more than 50 feet from the water. However, during the hurricane, the waves generated by the Hurricane Sandy were causing the water to reach much closer to the structures built next to the beach.

All these observations makes one question permanence, and wonder about how things get shaped by time.