Blog

Aug 09, 2023

Whatever happened to … the gate that stopped you from beach driving from Virginia to North Carolina?

It’s been more than 30 years since the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service installed

It's been more than 30 years since the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service installed a fence along the North Carolina and Virginia border, ending surf-side joyrides to and from the Outer Banks.

What had once been a 10-mile sandy commute to civilization for residents of tiny Carova Beach, N.C., turned into an arduous three-hour trek.

The new route still involved a 10-mile drive along the beach, but in the opposite direction – toward the pavement of N.C. 12 at Corolla – then through tourist traffic to Kitty Hawk and over the Wright Memorial Bridge before heading another 45 miles north to the Virginia line in Chesapeake, still a good half-hour from the Oceanfront.

The locals rebelled, took to calling the fence the "Iron Curtain," and nearly two decades of court battles and civil disobedience followed. The fence prevailed and continues to protect nesting shorebirds and sea turtles in the Back Bay National Wildlife Refuge.

The government granted driving permits to permanent residents who could prove they had lived in the unpaved strand south of the refuge before Dec. 31, 1979.

Many commuted to jobs in Virginia.

The Wildlife Service initially issued 100 such residential permits, Back Bay refuge manager Jared Brandwein estimated.

When those original permit-holders die or move away, their heirs can inherit their cottages but not the electronic cards and keys that would allow them to use the refuge shortcut.

Today, there are 14 residents left in the so-called Motor Vehicle Access Permit Program, Brandwein said. A federal judge's order last week taking away the right to drive on Cape Hatteras National Seashore's beaches will have no effect on the Back Bay program, Brandwein said.

North Carolina's Outer Banks beaches can sometimes seem like a highway during the tourist season.

The North Carolina Transportation Department in May 1998 counted 10,920 vehicles on the northern Outer Banks beach in one week, and surveys in 2005 showed a daily average of about 1,500 cars and trucks. The fence and permit system has kept such hordes out of the refuge and away from the wildlife, Brandwein said.

Brandwein trained at Back Bay from 1984 through 1988, a time when some irate drivers were chewing up the dunes to get around the gates. The permit system is "not controversial," now, he said, and there have been no complaints about it in the past four years.

With the electronic key cards and computers keeping track of who drives through, the system essentially runs itself, Brandwein said.

These days, he said, those with permits are more likely to be calling to report a nesting sea turtle than to complain about how those turtles prevent them from driving the beach at night during the summer.

"That's how far we’ve come with our relationships," Brandwein said.

Tony Germanotta, (757) 222-5113, [email protected]

Sign up for email newsletters