New Inlet was an
inlet
An inlet is a (usually long and narrow) indentation of a shoreline, such as a small arm, bay, sound, fjord, lagoon or marsh, that leads to an enclosed larger body of water such as a lake, estuary, gulf or marginal sea.
Overview
In marine geogra ...
along the
Outer Banks of
North Carolina
North Carolina () is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States. The state is the 28th largest and 9th-most populous of the United States. It is bordered by Virginia to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the east, Georgia and So ...
joining
Pamlico Sound with the
Atlantic Ocean
The Atlantic Ocean is the second-largest of the world's five oceans, with an area of about . It covers approximately 20% of Earth's surface and about 29% of its water surface area. It is known to separate the " Old World" of Africa, Europe ...
. It had not existed since 1945
before
Hurricane Irene
Hurricane Irene was a large and destructive tropical cyclone which affected much of the Caribbean and East Coast of the United States during late August 2011. The ninth named storm, first hurricane, and first major hurricane of the 2011 At ...
temporarily re-opened the inlet in 2011.
History
New Inlet first opened around 1738, separating
Bodie Island from
Hatteras Island. When a
hurricane
A tropical cyclone is a rapidly rotating storm system characterized by a low-pressure center, a closed low-level atmospheric circulation, strong winds, and a spiral arrangement of thunderstorms that produce heavy rain and squalls. Depend ...
opened
Oregon Inlet about 11 miles to the north in 1846, the land between New Inlet and Oregon Inlet became known as
Pea Island
Pea Island is an island which is part of the Outer Banks of North Carolina. Because of the shifting nature of the barrier island system of which Pea Island is a part, and the way in which inlets open and close over time, Pea Island has, at times ...
. New Inlet now separated Hatteras Island from Pea Island.
The opening of the wider Oregon Inlet meant less water flowed through New Inlet, and by 1922 the inlet had closed.
In 1933, the inlet, or at least one nearby, briefly reopened after a strong hurricane,
but it closed only a few months later. Pea Island was a contiguous part of Hatteras Island until the passage of
Hurricane Irene
Hurricane Irene was a large and destructive tropical cyclone which affected much of the Caribbean and East Coast of the United States during late August 2011. The ninth named storm, first hurricane, and first major hurricane of the 2011 At ...
in August 2011. The storm temporarily re-opened New Inlet, once again separating Pea Island from Hatteras Island.
In 2017 the North Carolina Department of Transportation replaced a temporary road bridge on North Carolina Highway 12 spanning New Inlet with an "interim" bridge, so called due to ongoing efforts to resolve how to best route N.C. 12 through or around the
Pea Island National Wildlife Refuge.
References
Bodies of water of Dare County, North Carolina
Outer Banks
Inlets of North Carolina
{{DareCountyNC-geo-stub