Bid awarded; Mirlo Beach widening set to start next week
By Rob Morris on July 9, 2014
The ocean can easily wash over N.C. 12 in storms. (NCDOT)
The company that finished Nags Head’s 10-mile beach widening project ahead of schedule has won a contract to pump sand onto the shoreline at the troublesome S-curve on N.C. 12 just north of Rodanthe.
Great Lakes Dredge and Dock Co. of Oak Brook, Ill. bid $20.3 million for the Hatteras Island job.
Great Lakes will use two dredges to pump 1.26 million cubic yards sand from offshore onto 2 miles of beach — the equivalent of 60,000 dump-truck loads — by September, if the weather cooperates.
The first dredge is expected to arrive July 16 — next week — as the pipeline from offshore is being installed.
A second dredge will arrive in August, a North Carolina Department of Transportation statement said.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is coordinating the project for NCDOT, which will next look at the possibility of building up the shoreline to protect areas of N.C. 12 farther south in Rodanthe, in southern Hatteras Island and on Ocracoke.
Great Lakes raced to finish pumping 4.6 million cubic yards of sand onto Nags Head’s Beach in August of 2011 just before Hurricane Irene swept through the Outer Banks.
N.C. 12 has become increasingly vulnerable to storms and has been shut down by sand, ocean over wash and breaches numerous times. The most serious damage in recent years came from Hurricane Sandy in 2012 and Hurricane Irene in 2011.
Last week’s Hurricane Arthur sent sand and water onto the road and buckled some asphalt near the temporary bridge on Pea Island, but it was reopened within a day.
The widening project north of Rodanthe at Mirlo Beach is intended to protect the road while planning for a permanent bridge is completed.
It took two tries to get a contractor. Only one bid was received in January because so many companies were doing work in the northeast after Sandy.
