Recovery continues on Ocracoke Island but at slow pace
The recovery process on Ocracoke Island is moving along but slowly after Hurricane Dorian.
Heavy equipment and hand-held rakes are helping clear up debris and damage after flooding swamped the area.
On one side of the dunes you can see and hear the tender crash of ocean waves. On the other side is the crash of ruins rising like the foulest of mountains.
Like the waves, the trucks rumble in, offloading what had been valuable possessions just weeks before. Now it's all stashed in a beachfront parking lot off lonely Hwy.12. Its final destination: Recycling centers and landfills off the island.
Its origin: The streets of Ocracoke Village, where Leslie Lanier is raking up after her own rubble mound, which was at last hauled away. She owns the Books To Be Red bookstore and managed to salvage most of her books from Dorian's deluge.
"You know, it's our stuff," Lanier said. "It's my books, it's my paperwork, it's my children's artwork. But now that we've thrown it all away, it's good to see it gone."
People treasure the sound of the junk haulers. It's the sound of cleansing, healing. In a nod to normalcy, the Magic Bean Coffee Shop is perking again, too. Caitlin Mitchell, an islander all her 30 years, will soon have to rip out her shop's floors. For right now, lattes and lots of porch sitting are good for her neighborhood's soul.
"Helps me feel like we're moving in a forward direction," Mitchell said of the cleanup process. "It's wonderful to see people enjoying the space and just kind of sit and breathe and relax."
After more than a week of silence, the voice of Ocracoke, 90.1 FM, is on the airwaves again. Classes will start Monday for 175 school students. Tommy Hutcherson saw to it that the Ocracoke Variety Store would be open for his neighbors, reliable as a lighthouse.
"Our aim is to always be here for the people, and that's what we do, to be here for people in dire situations," Hutcherson said.
The rubbish heaps will eventually be gone, and we'll be mesmerized again by those other mounds from the dunes.
