Bomb Found On Shelly Island Causes Evacuation
This morning on Friday July 14 at about 8:00am a local fisherman was fishing on the new island (Shelly Island) across from Cape Point on Hatteras Island at the Outer Banks. The fisherman founded washed up on the island some type of unidentified explosive device. The device could be an old military device such as an unexploded ordnance. The island was quickly evacuated. Now multiple agencies are involved. Those agencies involved include the Hatteras Island Rescue Squad, Dare County Emergency Management, the National Park Service, the US Coast Guard, and several local fire departments. Now the Navy and Marine Corp Explosive Ordnance Disposal Technicians out of Virginia are on the way to Buxton. That ODT team is expected to arrive sometime Friday afternoon. The device on the island is causing a lot of excitement for the Outer Banks. Shelly Island was making the news before but now this explosive device that has been discovered washed ashore on the new island will cause even more headlines in the news!
Shelly Island is a national news maker. The growing sandbar is just off of Cape Point at Buxton, NC at the Outer Banks. The new sandbar/island was not there just a few months ago. About April the small sandbar was noticed just off Cape Point. Over the next few months the sandbar kept getting bigger and bigger. Now the new island named Shelly Island is over a mile long and about three football fields long. The island is covered in seashells. One end of the new island is close to the beach at Cape Point. At low tide the narrow channel is only about 5 ft deep. Many people are swimming over from the beach to the new island at low tide. But officials ware that swimming to the island is not recommended. The current can be quite strong not to mention the sharks and stingrays that have been seen swimming in the channel. And if people stay too long and the tide rises the water gets deeper and the current is too strong for swimmers to safely swim back to Cape Point.
The safest way to get to the island is by other ways. Many people are using kayaks, boogie boards, canoes, small boats and SUPs to get to the newly formed island. The fishing is great on the ocean side of Shelly Island. Shellhunters are in heaven due to the large numbers of shells being found. Some beachcombers come back with bags and bags of conch shells and other great finds like colorful pieces of seaglass, scotch bonnets and other shells.
The island has made national news. Ginger Zee from Good Morning America broadcast live from the island a few weeks ago. FOX News has reported about Shelly Island and CNN has also covered the new island. Numerous local TV stations from NC, SC and Virginia as well as others have had stories about the newly formed island. Now this possible unexploded bomb washing ashore on Shelly Island will surly make more news.
