Cape Hatteras Lighthouse Newspaper Articles

Reprinted by permission of The News & Observer of Raleigh, North Carolina

May 2, 1999

The News & Observer

New base poured for old lighthouse

By JERRY ALLEGOOD; STAFF WRITER

Page: B3

BUXTON -- The new foundation for the Cape Hatteras Lighthouse began taking shape Saturday with the pouring of a huge slab of concrete in a sandy hole near the beach at Buxton.

A fleet of cement-mixing trucks rumbled through villages on Hatteras Island all morning, bringing about 500 cubic yards of concrete to the new location about 2,900 feet from the landmark beacon. The 200-foot tall lighthouse is scheduled to be moved over the 60-by-60 concrete pad this summer.

"It's a symbolic step," National Park Service historian Rob Bolling said of the foundation. "It's the first part of what will constitute the lighthouse."

The park service is moving the 129-year-old lighthouse away from the ocean to protect it from erosion that has brought waves within 150 feet of the base. Several support structures were moved earlier this year, including a two-story house that once housed assistant lighthouse keepers and the two-story brick house of the principal keeper.

As the new foundation takes shape, the old granite-and-mortar foundation is being cut away. All that remains is a few feet of stone placed under the lighthouse when it was built in 1870.

The remaining stone is scheduled to be cut away in the next few days, leaving the 4,800-ton structure sitting on a framework of specially made steel supports.

Workers will then insert steel beams under the base and slowly begin lifting it 5 or 6 feet high, a delicate process that will take about a month. Moving the lighthouse horizontally over a bed of steel tracks is scheduled to begin in June and take about six weeks to complete.

The original foundation began with two layers of yellow pine timbers placed crossways in a 6-foot hole in the sand. Large blocks of granite were then stacked on the timber to form a massive octagonal base - all of which remained below ground.

The modern method using common gray concrete instead of imported granite isn't quite as dramatic but it is designed to hold the weight of the massive tower, Bolling said.

Workers for the moving company, International Chimney Co. of Buffalo, N.Y., dug a 6-foot hole, pumped out the groundwater and built a wooden frame laced with steel reinforcing rods. Filling the 60-foot square frame with about five feet of concrete required 15 trucks and about 45 trips to Coastal Ready Mix Concrete Company's sites at Buxton and Kill Devil Hills.

The trucks rumbled onto a temporary road at the new lighthouse grounds and discharged their loads into two machines that pumped the concrete through hoses to the frame.

Work continued from daybreak to midday despite 30-mile-per-hour winds and intermittent rain. Poor weather may have diminished the number of sightseers who stopped by to get a glimpse of the lighthouse before it is moved. But it didn't keep some people from hiking along a makeshift path through woods to watch the foundation take shape.

Victor Vernon, a Frisco resident who has done volunteer work at the lighthouse visitor center for six years, stood in a cold rain for several hours as workers in yellow rainsuits slogged over wet concrete. He said he had watched each stage of the relocation so far.

"This is one of those once-in-a-lifetime deals," he said. "I'll never see anything like this again."

Section: News
Edition: Final
Estimated Printed Pages: 2

Index Terms:
NC
coast
Cape Hatteras Lighthouse

Caption:
photo

Building the new base for the Cape Hatteras Lighthouse, workers in rain suits feed concrete from two long-armed concrete pumpers into wooden forms. It took more than six hours in high winds with rain squalls to empty 70-plus loads of concrete into the base.

Staff Photo By Chuck Liddy

Copyright 1999 by The News & Observer Pub. Co.

Record Number: 1999121049