A Big Storm Has Its Virtues
Quotes Brad Murray

6/1/04
Durham Herald-Sun, Lakeland (Fla.) Ledger

By EMERY P. DALESIO
The Associated Press

Also published on May 14-15 in: Charlotte Observer, Corpus Christi Caller-Times, Norfolk Virginian-Pilot, Atlantic City Press, Wilmington Morning Star, Savannah Morning News, Winston-Salem Journal, Sarasota (Fla.) Herald-Tribune, Augusta (Ga.) Chronicle.

NAGS HEAD, N.C. -- What's good about hurricanes?

Winkie Silver laughs at the sheer ridiculousness of the question, and then the thickly muscled, 56-year-old salvor gives some serious thought to his years battling big storms along the Outer Banks.

"It's almost like a forest fire -- it washes away a lot of dead and decaying debris," Silver said during a break on a project to rebuild a pier ripped apart by last year's Hurricane Isabel.

"It also is a spiritual rebirth," he said. "The people that survive through these storms realize that the basic human need isn't these luxury houses and things . . . it's shelter, food and I don't know what word to use other than love of mankind."

Just as a big blow can have an unforeseen positive effect on people, scientists say a case can be made that hurricanes are not just about death and destruction when it comes to the environment.

Hurricanes beef up barrier islands, refresh waterways from Florida's Everglades to Corpus Christi Bay, restore habitats for shorebirds and bring rain to some of the world's driest zones.

At Duke University, scientist Brad Murray studies how a hurricane disgorges sand from offshore onto barrier islands that otherwise would sink under the waves of rising oceans. While hurricanes can erode the beaches where human eyes are drawn, the wind and crashing waves deposit more onto the back side of a barrier island.

"If you don't let this periodic overwash happen, the island gets skinnier and skinnier," Murray said.

That process can be seen on the Outer Banks, where an inlet covered by a wooden bridge in the 1930s has filled with sand. The area is now a marsh, with hammocks of land supporting tufts of grass, which will retain other sediment, supporting other flora until the spot becomes solid ground.

Hurricanes in 1749 and 1806 are credited with dumping sand to form an 800-acre spit in Norfolk, Va., that's now the site of hundreds of homes.

The storm surge also pushes water far inland, up bays and rivers. As the water drains out, it leaves behind sediment that nourish marshes, said Karen Westphal, a Louisiana State University researcher who has done aerial video surveys of the state's coast before and after hurricanes.

"The ones we've seen that have left big layers of mud . . . have a fertilizing effect and the marsh does better after that," she said. "At the same time it's destroying some habitat, it's renewing other habitat."

Buckets of rain come with all hurricanes. Last year's Hurricane Claudette brought fresh water to Corpus Christi Bay, spawning a population explosion of fish and crabs there, said Ray Allen, executive director of Coastal Bend Bays & Estuaries Program.

"In the end, what these storms do is bring new sediments and new nutrients into the system and those nutrients work their way through the food chain and drive the biological production of the system," Allen says.

Media contact: Tim Lucas, 919/613-8084 or tdlucas@duke.edu