Power, Tourists Return To N.C.’s Ocracoke, Cape Hatteras Islands

CHARLOTTE, NC -- The lights are back on and vacationers are returning to Hatteras and Ocracoke islands in the Outer Banks of North Carolina, one week after a construction company damaged a transmission line and prompted the evacuation of an estimated 10,000 tourists.

PCL Construction, the company that caused the outage, told the Cape Hatteras Electric Cooperative that workers drove a steel casing into an electric cable on Bonner Bridge.

The power outage began around 4:30 a.m. July 27, leaving an estimated 9,000 residents without power. The evacuation was in effect at 5 p.m. that day, and officials began requiring proof of residency for anyone trying to access the islands.

Cape Hatteras Electric Cooperative announced Aug. 3 that power had been restored through a new overhead transmission line near Oregon Inlet. “Each of the seven villages on Hatteras Island have been removed from generator power and are now receiving power from the cooperative’s transmission lines,” it said in a statement. (Sign up for our free daily newsletters and Breaking News Alerts for the Charlotte Patch. iPhone users can download the Patch app in the App Store. Plus, like Charlotte Patch on Facebook.)

The return of power also brought the return of tourists. County officials lifted the mandatory evacuation order at noon on Friday, Aug. 4.

Watch this video of Ocracoke Island taken days before the massive outage:

Patch Photos

Patch Editor Geoff Dempsey contributed to this report.