The 46 people and four dogs participating in the First Day Hike at Jockey’s Ridge State Park got a first glimpse of what will become the new park boardwalk.

The Rules Review Commission during its Thursday morning meeting in Raleigh approved the rule designating Jockey’s Ridge an area of environmental concern after over two years of objecting to the rule and returning it to the Coastal Resources Commission for revisions.

Ocean outfall pipes on the Outer Banks have been found to have high concentrations of bacterial contamination during and after storm events.

In the last 15 years, five high-profile wind turbines on the Outer Banks have been installed and subsequently destroyed or deconstructed.

Dare County has a Wednesday deadline for homeowners to apply for a federal grant program that would potentially purchase threatened homes or raise homes in several years. Interested homeowners can fill out an ongoing county survey to be contacted about future grant opportunities.

Nine unoccupied oceanfront houses on Hatteras Island collapsed last week, and officials and residents expressed concern over this week’s forecast bringing the potential for more destruction. Dare County increased its storm fund as a precaution.

State agencies have issued two permits for the proposed Mid-Currituck Bridge project.

Nearly 4,000 northern Outer Banks customers lost power on Monday morning as salt buildup—in one case, causing a power pole to catch fire—caused mostly short outages, according to a Dominion Energy spokesperson.

All three area-specific mandatory evacuations for Hurricane Erin were lifted over the weekend. Some hazards, especially in Buxton, remain.

Sections of Hatteras Island began experiencing overwash from still-distant Hurricane Erin on Tuesday, and all of the Outer Banks is under a tropical storm warning and a storm surge warning.

Dare and Hyde counties each issued a state of emergency declaration Sunday evening and mandatory evacuation orders for Hatteras Island and Ocracoke Island as potentially dangerous conditions from Hurricane Erin are expected to begin Tuesday.

Three people across the Outer Banks contracted Vibrio infections from open wound exposures to sound water in July, including two people who were hospitalized, according to area health officials.

Last-minute changes made to legislation in the state Senate in June would have banned all shrimp trawling in the state’s inshore waters and within a half-mile of the shoreline for four years. After a hastily organized lobbying campaign from shrimpers and their allies, the legislature put the trawling ban on ice—for now.

Outer Banks beachgoers from South Nags Head to Corolla reported sections of the Atlantic Ocean appearing neon greenish to yellow-hued over a span of several days in late June.

A U.S. Army Corps of Engineers spokesperson confirmed to Outer Banks Insider that all five of Dare County’s formerly suspended dredging permits have been reinstated.

Hatteras Plawkers clean up trash from the roadside on Hatteras Island once a week from April through November.

A dead juvenile female humpback whale that washed up in Corolla was discovered to have broken bones suggesting the whale suffered “blunt force trauma,” a necropsy performed Friday found.

The Buxton FUDS Restoration Advisory Board, during the first of what will be quarterly meetings, expressed appreciation for the work done so far at the site and hopes that remaining contamination will be addressed.

Eleven people were selected to the Restoration Advisory Board for the Buxton Naval Facility FUDS. The first meeting is Thursday, April 10.

Reports of sick raccoons around the Outer Banks began last summer. Current complaints of the deadly canine distemper virus vary by agency.