Severe Damage Predicted If Hurricane Floyd Hits North Carolina’s Southeast Coast

BUFFALO, N.Y. -- A sociologist researching regional development along North Carolina's southeast coast said today that if Hurricane Floyd makes landfall in that region, damage will be very serious -- exacerbated by the area's dramatic population increase over 20 years and the overdevelopment of coastal lands.

Christopher Mele (MEH´-Lay), Ph.D., assistant professor of sociology at the University at Buffalo, is writing a book on race, class and regional development in southeast North Carolina. He lived in that region for three years while on the faculty of the University of North Carolina, Wilmington.

Mele says that the property damage and environmental destruction that will occur if Floyd hits the region around Wilmington is likely to be much worse than that sustained in hurricanes Bertha (July 1996), Fran (September 1996) and Bonnie (August 1998).

Several factors, he said, will exacerbate the damage:

• Excessive population growth along the region's physically unstable coastline with residential and commercial overdevelopment of tidal areas

• The construction of housing and business properties without consideration of the risks posed by the region's history of hurricane activity and constant battering by wind and sea

• The clearing of marshlands that stabilized the shoreline in order to accommodate construction

• Barriers erected by the North Carolina legislature to building hardened structures such as jetties, that can arrest erosion on the grounds that such structures simply shift the impact to another unprotected shore.

"North Carolina's southeast coastal region has been overdeveloped by individuals and groups who appear oblivious to the risks they provoke," Mele says.

"The Wilmington metropolitan area -- officially New Hanover and Brunswick Counties -- is the 15th fastest-growing area in the nation," according to Mele. He notes that the city of Wilmington added 12,532 people between 1990 and 1998 -- a 22.6 percent increase. In 1994, the Wilmington metropolitan area was number six in the ranking of growth among the nation's metropolitan regions. Rapid growth has required additional housing and commercial development which has been accomplished by filling marshlands and overbuilding in fragile tidal areas.

"These lowland sites are not suitable for such dense population growth," Mele says, "because by nature, the landforms that define the state's southeast coast regularly erode and change shape as a result of environmental factors, particularly hurricanes. Even the locations of inlets are shifting all the time."

As an example of the kind of damage that can result from hurricanes added to thoughtless development, Mele points to a large, multistory condominium complex built too close to the eroding shores in Wrightsville, N.C. He says, "Regular high tides come within 10 to 20 feet of structure. A large hurricane could easily undermine its foundation, causing it to collapse."

Overdevelopment on the Barrier Islands is particularly problematic, he says.

"The Barrier Islands are 'migrating' islands," he says. "That means that the constant pounding by wind and sea causes them to shift, erode and change shape year after year. Their physical structure is by nature labile.

"That's why the Hattaras Lighthouse had to be moved recently. The erosion -- or migration -- of the Outerbanks threatened to topple it. Far too many structures have been constructed on these islands than their shifting land mass can sustain," Mele says. "As a result, a really bad hurricane like Floyd causes enormous physical destruction and economic loss. There's much more there to destroy today than ever before."

Mele says the aftermath of a devastating hurricane also precipitates changes in the population and social makeup of the region. "For instance, after Hurricane Fran," he says, "there was an influx of Mexican migrant laborers who came to rebuild, re-roof and otherwise stabilize damaged structures. Most of them remained, changing the ethnic makeup of the region."

For Mele, such demographic changes are significant as they shift political and social patterns that have long histories in the region. "Prior to the 1980s, southeastern North Carolina was relatively isolated and insulated from many of the changes associated with the so-called New South, such as the growth of Research Triangle Park in the state's center Piedmont region."

Since 1990 and the opening of the Interstate 40 extension that connected the center of the state to the coast, new populations -- the elderly, tourists, retirees, professionals and low-wage service workers -- have inundated the area, he says. Media attention to Wilmington's film industry has been a strong attraction.

Mele holds a doctorate in sociology from the New School for Social Research, a master's degree in sociology and another in political science. He is published in the fields of urban sociology, community studies and the sociology of culture and has given numerous conference presentations and invited lectures.

He is the author of "Selling the Lower East Side: Real Estate, Culture and Resistance in New York City" (forthcoming from the University of Minnesota Press). His work is published in "Access to Cyberspace and the Empowerment of Disadvantaged Communities in Cyberspace," edited by Peter Kollock and Marc Smith. (London and New York: Routledge). Mele's forthcoming book is titled "New South, Old South: Race, Class and Regional Development in Southeast North Carolina."