Masonry Continues
August 14, 1999
Cheryl Roberts
UPDATE
HATTERAS ISLAND, NC

From Cape Hatteras, Timothy Crimmins, Quality Control Officer for International Chimney, Inc. (ICC), filled us in on the latest developments at the construction site. Brick by brick, workers from Masonry Building Corporation of Virginia Beach are helping to build the layers of the brick foundation between the underside of the lighthouse and the concrete pad.

This is part of the continued history of the Cape Hatteras Lighthouse. We might be reminded that this lighthouse was not born with history, but has grown its own history over the past 129 years. Newly relocated 1,600 feet from high tide, the history continues.

Photos courtesy National Park Service

In the first of two photos, "oil house and brick columns," courtesy the National Park Service, [Large Image] you can see that the lighthouse once again rests on the orange shoring towers that have hydraulic jacks to help with support.

The brick oil house is over its new foundation and Expert House Movers expect to lower the 1904 structure onto its new foundation sometime Monday and then begin the completion of its brick foundation wall.

In the foreground of the first image are cubes of brick, part of a total of 140,000 to 150,000 bricks, waiting to take their places in the foundation beneath the tower. They will be laid in columns five feet high and twenty-six inches wide to conjoin the base of the lighthouse with the five-foot thick concrete pad. On the average, eight masons and seven helpers are working each day. To the left of the worker, center left, you may be able to get a glimpse of something blue. This is one of several large fans set up to cool workers who have been laboring in a record hot and humid southern summer.

Photos courtesy National Park Service

In the second image, a close-up view of the brick columns shows [Large Image] the center wall of bricks running from one side of the tower to the other. Known as the "spine" wall, running in a north-south direction, it is complemented by "rib" columns of brick. On Monday, ICC plans to depressurize shoring towers situated by two of fourteen "corridors," or columns of brick. Once movers and engineers are satisfied with the load transfer, work will commence to fill in gaps with more brick columns as shoring towers are removed. One area at a time, shoring towers will be depressurized and a load transfer will be made to the brick columns until the load of the lighthouse rests on brick infill and the concrete pad. Time estimated for this final work phase is approximately four to six weeks.

Repeated testing has been done by structural engineers to determine the amount of time needed for the newly placed mortar to cure and to be able to accept the load of the tower onto each brick column. Slowly, the brick infill will become a solid unit.

Granite face stones of the original first plinth will be replaced and earth will cover the entire foundation to leave the lighthouse looking like its venerable self.

The original site has been smoothed over with some of the granite plinth stones marking the lighthouse and keepers' quarters sites. The former site of the historic structures is once again open to the public.

The U.S. Coast Guard has posted a change in the coordinates for the Cape Hatteras Lighthouse in their Local Notice to Mariners: Monthly Issue. The change is from 35°15'18.6"N, 075°31'10.5"W to 35°15'07.9"N, 075°31'43.7"W

The NPS has planned a re-lighting ceremony for 7:00 pm, Saturday, September 4th at the Cape Hatteras Light Station. Plans include music and a Coast Guard Helio fly over and a message from Cape Hatteras National Seashore Group Superintendent Bob Reynolds.

The weekend of Saturday, September 11, the Outer Banks Lighthouse Society will host its Annual Keepers Dinner at the Ramada Inn in Kill Devil Hills. Beginning at 5:00 pm we will begin an evening of celebration in the memory of the thousands of keepers and their families who ran personal marathons to keep a light all around American coasts and lakes and forgotten backwaters. Joe Jakubik, International Chimney Project Manager for the Cape Hatteras Light Station Relocation, will tell us the story of how the move was accomplished. ICC and Expert House Movers and the team of workers and engineers made it look sooooo easy. This will be your chance to ask all those questions about which you have wondered.

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Settling on New Foundation
July 29, 1999
Cheryl Roberts
UPDATE
HATTERAS ISLAND, NC

International Chimney, Inc. and its team of engineers and moving experts are in final stages of getting the Cape Hatteras Lighthouse settled onto her new foundation. Expert House Movers are part of the team who have given us a National Historic Landmark safe at the end of a road, marking a celebrated "maiden voyage."

Photos courtesy Bruce Roberts

In the first image, "pulling last main beams," [Large Image] you can see the sixth gigantic main beam being removed from under the lighthouse. Seven of these double-wide, steel beams had hydraulic jacks installed within, which raised, lowered, and supported the lighthouse during the move process. Shoring towers remain as support.

Photos courtesy Bruce Roberts

The second image, "shoring towers at new site" [Large Image] is taken with a super-wide angle lens. Leaning is an optical illusion from the wide angle perspective. You can see the light station once again as an entity, appearing as it did at the original site. A photographer can now stand this far away and get a great picture without wearing waders!

The lighthouse sits atop the laterally supported, orange shoring towers once again. Brick layers are now at work building brick columns in the spaces between these Atlas-like, four posted supports and the concrete pad. There is about four feet of height between the base of the lighthouse and the concrete. As shoring towers are removed, brick will fill in the remaining spaces, conjoining the base of the lighthouse to the concrete. Within approximately one month, earth will cover the cement and brick foundation and final touches to the relocation site will commence.

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Sign Up for Lighthouse Society Announcements
Feb 1, 1999
Staff Report

The Outer Banks Lighthouse Society will update the progress of the Cape Hatteras Lighthouse move throughout the Spring ... sign up to receive e-mail updates.

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Schedule of Events
UPDATE
July 17, 1999
Cheryl Roberts

The new lighthouse site is an area of 3.1 acres surrounded by natural growth. The light of the lighthouse will gain an advantage at a new height to put the beacon out across Diamond Shoals. A Notice to Mariners for light-out was issued for March 1st.

May until early June: installation of the main beams with hydraulic jacks that lifted the tower. The next step was to install the roll beams upon which the tower will move.

Eary June the slide began. It can take up to six weeks, moving about 50-100 feet per day. This is now predicted to last until early-July.

Early July until early September the tower will arrive at the new foundation, be lowered onto the concrete pad, all steel removed, and concrete infill to complete its new foundation will be done.

Phase 2 will begin and work on details including parking, utilities and such begins.

September 4th, beginning at 7:00 pm the National Park Service will host the re-lighting ceremony.

Memorial Day 2000 reopening is planned. Nothing specific has been announced, but a ceremony will likely be in order.

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Re-lighting Ceremony
July 17, 1999
Cheryl Roberts
UPDATE
HATTERAS ISLAND, NC

The National Park Service announced that a re-lighting ceremony has been set for Saturday, September 4, beginning at 7 pm at the Cape Hatteras Light Station. Plans include music and a Coast Guard Helio fly over and a message from Cape Hatteras National Seashore Group Superintendent Bob Reynolds.

One of the singers will be Bett Padgett who will sing from her new CD If a Lighthouse Could Speak, of which she is donating half the proceeds of sales to the Cape Hatteras National Seashore via the Outer Banks Lighthouse Society.

This gala event will mark the beginning of a celebrated future for this historic light station.

Wings Over Water Festival Announced
July 30, 1999
Outer Banks Chamber of Commerce
ANNOUNCEMENT
Kill Devil Hills, NC

The 3rd Annual Wings Over Water Festival will be held November 5-7, 1999. Sponsored by the Outer Banks Chamber of Commerce, Coastal Wildlife Refuge Society, U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, National Park Service, County of Dare and the Dare County Tourist Bureau, the festival offers a close-up look at nature throughout Northeastern North Carolina.

The 3-day festival weekend features workshops on gull and shorebird identification, wildlife photography, Japanese fish printing, bird banding, antique decoys, and coastal plant identification. Field trips include: birding in the Pea Island Wildlife Refuge and along the Cape Hatteras National Seashore; wading through salt marshes; kayaking and canoeing on the Pamlico Sound; Red Wolf Howling safaris; hunts for black bear and walks through the Maritime Forest.

Evening programs offer discussions of Red-cockaded Woodpeckers, Pelagic Birds, California Condors, the Maritime Forest, Outer Banks History & Folklore, Birding Hotspots and Sea Life.

Wings Over Water is a must for wildlife enthusiasts, backyard birders, serious birders, or anyone who enjoys a close-up look at nature. On Saturday there is a family fun festival with live entertainment, food, arts and crafts, children's games, educational exhibits and a photo contest.

Visit Wings Over Water for a list of workshops, educator opportunities, programs, schedules, special activities, and to pick up a registration package, send a friend an e-mail invitation or request a printed registration & schedule of events package.

Call the Chamber of Commerce at (252) 441-8144 for a printed package that includes a list of area accommodations which are offering discounts during the festival weekend. The listing offers accommodation name, contact name, discount offered, and establishment location.

Fall on the the Outer Banks is an experience of a lifetime. Don't miss this year's Wings Over Water Festival!

New Cape Hatteras Book Released
July 17, 1999
Staff Report
ANNOUNCEMENT
ROANOKE ISLAND, NC

CAPE HATTERAS: AMERICA'S LIGHTHOUSE, has just been announced by Cumberland House. The book is by Thomas Yocum, Bruce Roberts, and Cheryl Shelton-Roberts and will be available at most of the national bookstore chains such as Borders and Barnes & Noble in the near future. It will also be widely available on the Outer Banks including the National Park Service, Buxton vistors center at the Cape Hatteras Lighthouse.

Book Review:

By Homer H. Hickam ... author of Torpedo Junction, Rocket Boys/October Sky, and Back to the Moon.

"Cape Hatteras: America's Lighthouse is a treasure to all of us who love what is arguably the most famous lighthouse in the world. The authors should be commended for writing not only a fascinating look into the past and future of this great beacon, but also a damn fine tale of passion, perseverance, intrigue, romance, grand schemes, utter calamities, and vast heroism.

This is an important bit of American history but it is not a dry text. This book is a real page-turner, one that will illuminate your mind as surely as the Hatteras lighthouse on a frightening, dark sea. Like the mariners which once depended on the light to skirt a dangerous coast, after you finish reading this book, you will be grateful for the experience."

Homer H. Hickam

Aquarium Construction Update
July 12, 1999
Michael Halminski
UPDATE
ROANOKE ISLAND, NC

Even though the North Carolina aquarium at Roanoke Island is closed for major expansion, the staff is quite busy in expansion related details. Husbandry staff began collecting aquatic specimens, and adding them to special quarantine and holding tanks on the site. Collecting trips were made in the Croatan and Pamlico Sounds as well as Oregon and Hatteras Inlets. Species collected include Black Drum, Croakers, Spadefish, Pinfish, Red Drum, Sea Mullet and Bluefish. Exhibits staff has also been busy preparing Expansion Graphics, The Rivers of North Carolina Changing Exhibit, and The Coastal Gallery Changing Exhibit.

Photos courtesy Michael Halminski

Advisory Committee members inspect progress of the centerpiece exhibit Graveyard of the Atlantic Tank (above).

Construction contractor T. A. Loving Co. of Goldsboro has indicated that construction of the $15 million project is 55% complete including placement of the large acrylic viewing port for the 185,000 gallon Graveyard of the Atlantic fish tank. The tank will not only hold an assortment of sea life, but also a 50-foot replica of the Monitor, the Civil War ironclad ship that sunk off of Cape Hatteras in 1862.

Photos courtesy Michael Halminski
Steel roof framework was installed for the Greenhouse Project. The Greenhouse will contain trees and other vegetation as well as the River Otter Exhibit. (above).

Completion of the 68,000 square foot project is scheduled for March 21, 2000. Already in the planning stages, an official grand opening ceremony is set for May 17, 2000. This will include special guests, speakers and activities to be announced at a later date.

Photos courtesy Michael Halminski
General overall view of the construction site shows the new expansion project taking shape (above).

The other North Carolina Aquariums at Fort Fisher and Pine Knoll Shores are also scheduled for expansion in the near future. All 3 Aquariums host over 1 million visitors annually.

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