Here is some background. If what the coastal retreat advocates predict comes true, this could be a mess:
But at the suggestion of a U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service biologist, the group agreed to consider a new idea: a seven-mile-long bridge that would veer west from N.C. 12 just north of a new inlet created in August by Hurricane Irene, curving across Pamlico Sound and hooking back into the highway in the village of Rodanthe. ...
Julie Youngman, an attorney with the Southern Environmental Law Center, said environmental regulators had rejected DOT's options for N.C. 12 a few years ago, when they were broached in connection with a contract to replace the Oregon Inlet bridge, which was awarded in July.
The proposed bridges for vulnerable sections of the road will effectively move N.C. 12 into the ocean in coming decades, as the barrier island migrates in the other direction, she said. ...
Stanley R. Riggs, a coastal geologist who published a book this year on North Carolina's barrier islands, said the bridges would stabilize parts of N.C. 12 for a few years, but at a high cost. Other sections of the island also are vulnerable to heavy storm damage, he said.
"The question comes up as to whether a road-and-bridge system can even begin to survive for the time they're talking about, without breaking the state," said Riggs, an East Carolina University professor. "The feds don't have enough money to keep that road in place.
"You spend all that money on two bridges - and then an inlet opens up just a few miles down, where you don't have bridges. The shoreline continues to move west. You do not want a bridge in the surf zone, and it will be in the surf zone."
