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Allen Burrus: Well, Highway 12 is extremely important to us. It is
our lifeline. It's the only way in and out of here. And we have to
have it. Without it, we're dead in the water. It is not like most
rural communities. Because we're inundated in the summertime by
three million people actually. And they come from all over the
world.
Stanley Riggs: We're talking about putting a lot of money into the
bridge, and trying to maintain a highway across this weak spot in
the Barrier Islands. If the shoreline is moving, if sea-level is
rising, and there's no question about that, do we want to live
from hazard to hazard and catastrophe to catastrophe? This summer,
if we get a major storm, we could wipe out that whole system.
Should we build it back exactly the same way if that happens?
Spend 30, 40 million dollars to pump a lot of sand on that beach
to last another two years and then it's going to have to do it
again?
Nancy White: How much are you paying to fix that road, how much is
it worth? And what is the best thing to do with Highway 12. It
eventually leads to an adaptation issue which is economics, it's
community planning, it's climate science, it's all of that. The
community needs to be engaged in constructing that hypothesis and
that curriculum so that we make sure that we're actually working
on the problem that's relevant to the community.
Allen: We're bringing in a new dollar to turn over in this state
daily. 160-200 million dollars a year that goes into the state
coffers right off of Dare County. We subsidize it. And they need
us. Or they're going to have raised taxes for everyone else. And
so when you look at something like a bridge that costs 240 million
dollars, we'll pay for it in five years. You tell me where else
they do that.
Stanley: The whole business of learning to live with the dynamics
of a changing system, where change is the only constant, is a
challenge but a very doable challenge.
Nancy: When we talk about how to help the Outer Banks communities
adapt to the changes of their environment I think we all need to
take a deep breath. Right now we can't even have the conversation
because people are fairly well-polarized. And so, we've got to get
away from having people be backed into corners and let's see if we
can't open up the conversation a little bit and then when you get
all voices at the table, we'll come up with something that will
work, because that's how we got here to begin with.