Late Monday, the North Carolina Department of Transportation closed Ocracoke Island’s only thoroughfare “out of an abundance of caution,” as high tides brought ocean overwash flooding, the agency said in a social media post.

By Tuesday morning, the ocean had breached the dune, flooding the road in “deep water,” NCDOT said. There was no timeframe for when N.C. 12 might reopen, and ferry service between Hatteras and Ocracoke is suspended until it does..

Schools on Hatteras Island and Ocraocke operated under two-hour delays Tuesday morning, with high surf advisories in effect through 11 a.m. and flood watches up through 2 p.m.

Virginia braces for potential flooding, up to 4 inches of rain from tropical cyclone remnants

NCDOT reported N.C. 12 on Hatteras Island was open and passable Tuesday morning, but secondary roads in Rodanthe were “inundated with ocean overwash.”

“Additionally, over the next several days, the seashore expects varying levels of ocean overwash in Hatteras, Buxton and Rodanthe, and possibly near the Pea Island National Wildlife Refuge visitor center,” the National Park Service said in a news release.

In Rodanthe and Buxton, rough surf from the storm this week coupled with higher-than-usual tides due to the full moon, damaged several oceanfront homes already threatened by ongoing erosion.

The park service urged visitors to avoid the beach on the north end of Rodanthe due to debris from building materials and parts of septic systems on the beach and in the water. Authorities are also keeping an eye on several condemned oceanfront homes in Rodanthe and Buxton that appear to be in imminent danger of collapse.

Beginning Monday, N.C. Department of Transportation crews will reinstall offseason speed limit signs along sections of N.C. 12 on Hatteras Island, weather permitting.

Speed limits in areas through the tri-villages of Rodanthe, Waves, Salvo and Frisco on Hatteras Island will return to 45 mph from their seasonal limits of 35 mph. Offseason speed limits also will resume in several areas of Cape Hatteras National Seashore, including near the Haulover Parking Lot south of Avon, NCDOT said in a news release.

Speed limits on the section of N.C. 12 from Duck to the Currituck County line used to change seasonally, but last year they became 35 mph year-round due to safety concerns.

Though summer tourism has slowed on the Outer Banks this month, NCDOT advises motorists to continue driving with caution, as there are still many motorists, bicyclists and pedestrians as well as many visitors through the fall months.

The lower seasonal speed limits will return in May.

The VSO will perform “Pictures at an Exhibition,” a musical journey through an art gallery. The orchestra will also perform “Philharmonia Fantastique” and “Fanfare for Uncommon Times.”

Tickets start at $25 and can be purchased by visiting virginiasymphony.org.

The program will be repeated Sept. 15 at 2:30 p.m. at the Sandler Center for the Performing Arts in Virginia Beach.

All donations will go to the Hatteras Food Pantry. Suggested donations include canned foods like chili, soup, stews and vegetables, boxed foods, pasta, protein bars and healthy drinks.

The museum at 53536 N.C. 12 on Hatteras Island is full of Native American items from all over the country and offers a special exhibit room dedicated to the tribes of the Outer Banks.

See nativeamericanmuseum.org for more information.

From Sept. 10-13, visitors to the living history farm can meet Russell — otherwise known as “the chair guy” — and see him demonstrate the art of creating strong chair seats from the shucks of corn cobs.

Corn shuck seat weaving stemmed from the necessity of having to use what was on hand to make an item of function.

Several corn shuck chairs are part of Island Farm’s collection, indicative of the period. On Roanoke Island in the mid-19th century, corn was produced in high volumes. Today, original corn-husk woven chair seats are as rare as the people that know the trade.

Admission to Island Farm at 1140 North U.S. Highway 64, north of Manteo on Roanoke Island, is $10, with children under 3 free. See obcinc.org/island-farm for more information.

Families who need help, individual donors and corporate partners can connect with the Salvation Army that serves their community to either register as a client or become a supporter.

For Norfolk, Virginia Beach, Chesapeake and Portsmouth, registration runs through Sept. 27. Families with children up to 12 years old are eligible to apply at bit.ly/christmas_assistance.

For Williamsburg, Suffolk and surrounding counties, registration runs Sept. 23 to Oct. 4, with online client registrations at saangeltree.org.

For Hampton, Newport News, Poquoson, Lower York, Mathews and Gloucester counties, registration runs through Sept. 16, also at saangeltree.org.

Films are presented on a large outdoor screen in the recessed area of the Town Center Fountain Plaza.

Bring your own chairs and blankets. There will also be free popcorn and hot cocoa once cold weather arrives.

See cbda.net for a full list of films this fall.

At first, Nawal Baker thought she’d been bitten by a shark.

The 30-year-old Henrico resident and a friend were swimming in the ocean Sunday by Jennette’s Pier in Nags Head when she felt a severe pain on her foot. Knee deep in the Atlantic, she feared she was about to be pulled under, and yelled for her friend to get out of the water while heading for shore herself.

“I was looking down initially, because the water is so clear, and just as I looked up, I felt something. I was 100% sure it was a shark,” she said.

When she got out of the water, there was a “good amount of blood,” and it looked like someone had stabbed the top of her foot with a pencil. It didn’t take long to figure out the culprit was a stingray, not a shark.

“It looked like nothing, but the pain was indescribable,” she said.

Baker credits Debbie Wilson, a paramedic from Virginia, for keeping her calm as she was treated on the beach before being taken to the hospital.

“Debbie held my hand from start to finish, my eyes were on her the whole time,” Baker said.

Ray stings are relatively uncommon on the Outer Banks, local experts say, but do happen — we just don’t always hear about them.

“When our staff gets stung while teaching surf lessons, we simply have them soak their foot in a bucket of hot water, which helps immensely,” said Daryl Law, spokesman for Jennette’s Pier.

There are several types of stingrays in the waters around the Outer Banks and coastal North Carolina, with the Atlantic stingray the most common, according to the N.C. Department of Environmental Quality. A video from Jennette’s Pier on Sept. 1 showed several butterfly rays in the water around the time Baker was stung.

Rays are bottom-feeders with flattened, oval bodies and a long, venomous spine for self-defense. They can reach up to 6 feet long, but most are roughly 2 feet when encountered, the DEQ website said.

Law said people often confuse stingrays and harmless skates, noting rays “have whip-like tails that possess a sharp barb shaped like a long fingernail. Skates have sticker-like bumps on their tails but no stinging barb.”

Treating Baker’s sting began on the beach with hot packs, then continued in the hospital with immersing her foot in nearly scalding water, which helps neutralize stingray venom. Baker said she went into the ocean “knowing full well” she was sharing the water with plenty of sea creatures, but she didn’t expect an encounter with a stingray.

“The most traumatizing thing was thinking there was a shark and trying to shove my friend out of the water,” Baker said. “I genuinely thought that was the last moment of my life.”

Now, Baker’s thinking about getting a stingray tattoo on her foot when the wound heals.

Wildlife experts say ocean swimmers and waders can avoid rays by doing the “stingray shuffle.”

“Just shuffle your feet across the bottom and stingrays will feel the vibration and swim away, decreasing chances of being stung,” Law said.

A 0.3-mile stretch of beach in Buxton already had been closed for more than a year, with the expansion adding about a quarter of a mile more, the park service said in a release.

The beach is now closed from the southern end of beachfront homes in the village of Buxton at the end of Old Lighthouse Road to south of the old lighthouse jetties. The closure includes the beachfront in front of the southern groin and the Old Lighthouse Beach parking lot.

“The closure may change over the coming days based on ongoing field observations,” the release said.

Park rangers noticed “strong petroleum smells” Thursday morning along Old Lighthouse Beach, near the former U.S. Navy and U.S. Coast Guard facilities just north of the Cape Hatteras Lighthouse’s original site, the park service said.

They also found erosion from strong winds and wave action this week “uncovered significant quantities” of concrete, rebar, wires, PVC and metal pipes, metal fragments, and cables at the former military site.

“Soil and groundwater that is apparently contaminated with petroleum from historic military use of the site is now exposed to the beachfront during low tide, and wave action during high tide,” the release said.

All Buxton visitors should stay out of the area, the park service said.

Rangers reported observations of the petroleum exposure to the National Response Center, operated by the Coast Guard, Army Corps of Engineers and other state of North Carolina agencies that assist with pollution response, the park service said. The park service also requested assistance from the Regional Response Team, an interagency team that can help coordinate response and provide technical advice during oil spills or pollution events.

On Sept. 1, 2023, the park service closed two-tenths of a mile of beach near the exposed debris, then expanded the closure in March to roughly three-tenths of a mile.

In May, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers removed one pipe at the site thought to be leaking petroleum on the beach. Cleanup efforts have stalled as federal agencies and the military grappled with who is responsible.

The site is part of a 25-acre area the park service formerly leased to the military. A Navy base operated there from 1956 to 1984 on a submarine monitoring project kept classified until 1991. The facility was then used as a Coast Guard base until 2013 before returning to park service control.

After some recent fox squirrel sightings in Currituck and other areas of the state, the N.C. Wildlife Resources Commission is turning to the public to help confirm the species has moved into those areas.

The fox squirrel is the largest tree squirrel in North Carolina, nearly twice the size of the more common gray squirrel, the commission said in a news release.

“It lives primarily in mature longleaf pine and open pine-oak forests in the sandhills and southern coastal plain,” the release said, but has been verified in western parts of the state where there are open hardwood forests surrounded by pastureland. According to the North Carolina State Parks website, the fox squirrel’s range has primarily been west of the Albemarle Sound.

Fox squirrels look different, too. Though they have a variety of colors including gray, black and rust, those spotted in the coastal plain are usually gray with patches of black on the head and feet and white patches on the nose, paws and ear tips, the commission said. Some are nearly all black with dark gray patches and those in the northwestern part of the state are often tawny with some white patches.

If you see a fox squirrel, state wildlife biologists ask that you take a photo, note the location (GPS coordinates preferred) and contact NC Wildlife Helpline, via email at HWI@ncwildlife.org.

The commission is especially interested in sightings from Currituck, Lincoln, Granville and Madison counties.