Should Oregon Inlet be stabilized?

[taterguy]

This is a drive-by post. I'm leaving my house in a few minutes.

Just curious about how people feel about this.

And in case you couldn't tell, I'm talking about the Oregon Inlet that's just north of Hatteras Island on the North Carolina coast.

[Captain Hilts]

1. The sea always wins. No. There are better places to spend money. nt

[depakid]

2. Born of a hurricane- will likely die from a hurricane no matter what folks do

[ThomWV]

3. Yes. I say so as a fisherman who has gone through it many times

My own boat, a private boat, and no, not something like you'd see at the Fishing Center or up at Pirate's Cove. Just a large trailered boat and we fished it for years out of the Inlet and to the Stream.

That inlet is, as I'm sure you know, death defying - and I do not mean that in an offhand way. It can be mightly confusing to approach from the outside, it shifts all the time, and then there is the seemingly constant dredging and machinery to avoid. Oh, and not so experienced boaters too.

In short it is a horrible place but it is also the only way to the Ocean north of Hatteras and as bad as Oregon Inlet is, Hatteras is even worse. So there is the economic side and tourism below the bridge. If it shuts down that's roughly 65 additional miles and were Oregon Inlet to shoal up it would soon enough resemble Ockrcoke Inlet, which is nearly impassable - just look what happened to Portsmount as a result.

Of course there are the commercial fishing interests, the boat builders too - what would happen to Wanchese? A world without Wanchese-women would be no world at all.