Dorian devastated this place, but hope keeps washing ashore.
By Kelley Shinn in the New York Times
Ms. Shinn is a writer.
CreditCreditJulia Wall/The News & Observer
OCRACOKE, N.C. — I write this from a barrier island 26 miles off the mainland coast, accessible only by boat or plane. It has been about three weeks since Hurricane Dorian blew through, tore up and submerged the place that my 1,000 or so neighbors and I call home. While it might seem from a distance that the storm has passed, we are all as shellshocked as we were on Day 1.
I first came to Ocracoke as a 17-year-old who’d just lost her legs to meningitis and sepsis. The topography was overwhelmingly beautiful — and one night on the beach with a full moon, I found a reason to live again after tragedy. Nearly seven years ago, I came again for a 10-day vacation with my children and never left. I didn’t stay because of the geographical beauty, I stayed because of the village.
Many natives are descendants of the quartermaster of Blackbeard the pirate and still speak with a Hoi Toide brogue, a reference to the way the natives pronounce “high tide.” It’s a magical village where barters of bourbon for fresh fish take place with ease between bicycle baskets. Neighbors help neighbors, and newcomers who stay live by the motto of the native Ocracokers: We don’t ask for help, we give help. But that has changed. America, we need your help.
Sign Up for Debatable
Agree to disagree, or disagree better? We’ll help you understand the sharpest arguments on the most pressing issues of the week, from new and familiar voices.
About one-third of the island are native Ocracokers, one-fourth are Hispanic, two people are African-American and the rest, like me, are varying degrees of driftwood. We have Democrats, Republicans, Methodists, Baptists, Catholics, agnostics and Buddhists. When a storm hits and the ferries can’t run and a plane can’t land, we are on our own. It is that exact nature of isolation that makes this place so special. We don’t care who you voted for, or who you pray to, or what color your skin might be, when stuff hits the fan, we need each other, and if I have something you can use, then take it. When you live in vulnerability, you find out what matters most.
The island averages five feet above sea level, but Dorian inundated us with an unprecedented seven-foot storm surge that, according to the head of North Carolina Emergency Management, flooded over hundreds of our homes with anywhere from a few inches to four feet. Neighbors had to be rescued from their attics by boat, folks axed down their doors and swam through the surge to higher ground. At the Village Craftsmen, a native-owned gift store in operation for 40 years, lines are marked with the names of previous hurricanes. Hurricane Matthew from 2016 is there, one of the worst anyone can remember. The line for Dorian is 27 inches higher than Matthew. It is a miracle, that unlike our friends in the Bahamas, no one here died.
Our daycare center, briefly reopened, has been closed because of septic issues; our historic library has been closed. Our post office was reopened on Sept. 18, but our only bank remains closed. Currency is bartered goods. Most local businesses lost all of their merchandise. Our health center is now a series of mobile emergency units. Instead of surge, our island is now inundated with relief workers. Immediately after the storm, local watermen from neighboring islands came into our harbor, skiff after skiff, filled with water, food and supplies. Our schoolchildren, exhausted and anxious, and whose school may not be habitable for a year, helped those coastal kin unpack the boats and load the goods into the few trucks that were operable on the island, and then hauled them to our fire department, which has been the base of operations and distribution since disaster struck. We now call it FireMart.
We still have not been declared a federal disaster, hence we have no assistance from FEMA. Hundreds of my neighbors and friends have been displaced, matriarchs of our village are sitting on piles of debris waiting for good Samaritan crews to help clean out their homes, while the walls are bowing and the mold is growing daily. Last week, I began making phone calls from Raleigh to Washington to speak with my representatives and leaders about our current state of disaster.
Don’t miss stories like this Click to receive free updates
