A ribbon of devastation

About three miles north of Hatteras, what remains of N.C. 12 ends abruptly at
the edge of a wide inlet that wasn't there Wednesday.

About seven miles farther, the village of Buxton took a pounding. First the sea
erased the protective sand dunes, then chewed away on the Buxton Beach
and Cape Hatteras motels.

"The dunes aren't there anymore," said Tommy Butler, who runs a Buxton
restaurant and rode out the storm at his home. "It looks like a war zone."

About 20 miles north, roofs were missing from some houses in Waves and
Rodanthe. Others were in fragments in the sea.

N.C. 12 was under several feet of sand in places, water mains were broken
and some septic systems had been sucked from the ground.

`Like an atom bomb'

Only emergency workers were permitted into the southern tip of Nags Head
on Friday."It looks like an atom bomb went off," said Reid Harris, a local
builder who was helping the town tally up the damage. "Along the beach,
every one out of two or three houses is damaged or destroyed."

The roof of the Whalebone Motel, one of the first structures you pass on the
road into south Nags Head, collapsed during the storm. The 15-foot dune in
front of the building was washed out, and the brick wall facing the ocean was
pounded to pieces by the powerful storm surge.

Crews labored to clear roads in the resort town, a chore that sometimes
required them to muscle misplaced cottages to the shoulder.

Authorities say it will take weeks to clean debris and likely months to restore
N.C. 12 the entire length of the banks.

for pictures:

<http://www.usatoday.com/weather/graphics/hurricane/isabel/flash.htm>