North Carolina’s coastal history is closely tied to changes in its barrier islands — and to the inlets that link protected sounds to the open ocean.
Each year during hurricane season and on into the winter nor’easters, coastal residents and geologists alike ponder the possibility: Will a storm move enough water to cut a new inlet, or enough sand to close an existing one?
Since the initial publication in 1999 of Shifting Shorelines: A Pictorial Atlas of North Carolina Inlets, many significant changes have occurred within the NC inlet systems and along the adjacent shorelines. The major natural changes include the closure of three inlets — Old Topsail, New and Mad — while anthropogenic-related changes include the relocation of an entire inlet, Mason Inlet, and the realignment/relocation of all or a portion of the ebb channel at three inlets — Bogue, Cape Fear and Shallotte.
Here we tour the inlets, from Oregon Inlet south to Mad Inlet, using select imagery from 1993 to 2014.