Rural Decay en route to Hot Springs, North Carolina

Map from ESRI ArcGIS online. Red dashed line shows the route from Asheville to Hot Springs, North Carolina.

Every year, The Vintage rally for older BMW automobiles is held in Hot Springs, North Carolina. Most participants stay in the Asheville area, so the day of the show sees hundreds of classic BMWs streaming north on I-26 and US25/US70 towards the small hamlet of Hot Springs. Once the group leaves the interstate at Weaverville, US25/US70 winds in and out of the hills, past small towns and farms, and past some occasional bits of rural decay.

This is a streamlined/moderne-style filling station, possibly once a Mobil station, but a gas station archaeologist needs to weigh in and provide an identification. 

Marshall has a number of old garages and filling stations. The main town is out of sight west of US25 and 70.

I also saw old barns or sheds in the Marshall area, slowly being engulfed by trees and vines. I usually think of Mississippi being the place where the jungle takes over, but here in wet western North Carolina, the same happens.

Further north, somewhere in Madison County, I saw a similar vine-engulfed barn during my 2017 trip.

Barn, US25, Madison County, NC.

The second photograph is a former gas station built into a house, or a house built on top of a gas station. You can see the island where the pumps were once located.

Rick's Gro, 10994 US25 (digital photograph from Fujifilm X-E1 camera).

USA Raft at 13490 US70 occupies an unusual stone-clad filling station. You can see where one of the service bays on the left was filled in. Again, I cannot identify the original fuel brand.

The Laurel River Store is a friendly place to stop for an espresso. The lady who runs it is very nice. A number of the BMW drivers stopped to tank up (with coffee, that is, but the coffee might have had enough octane for the carbureted engines).

The remains of a log trailer court cabin were to the right of the Laurel River Store. Some units beyond this building were in better shape. The vines are taking over.

Just before you reach Hot Springs, US70 crosses the French Broad River. There had been almost monsoonal rain in May of 2018, and the river was in flood, with brown water roiling angrily downstream.

Finally, Hot Springs, and the grounds of the Hot Springs Spa. The 2017 show was sunny and warm; 2018 started out dry, but by 2:30, the rain came thundering down. Regardless, a good time was had by all, and it was a good chance to check if your car leaked (mine certainly does).

The 2017 black and white photographs are from Tri-X film and a Hasselblad 501CM camera. The 2018 square frames are from long-expired Fuji NPH400 film, exposed in a Rolleiflex 3.5E camera with 75mm f/3.5 Xenotar lens.

The River Arts District of Asheville - testing B&W Acros film

Former electrical transformer or junction building, BNSF rail yard, Old Lyman Street, Asheville, NC.

On my recent trip to North Carolina, I tried a new (to me) film: Fujifilm's black and white Acros. I had read that Acros was a superb emulsion, but Fujifilm was about to discontinue it. I had never tried it before, so I bought 10 rolls from Freestyle in Los Angeles, and by the next day, they were sold out. The frames in this post are from the River Arts District of Asheville, the same area that I photographed with color film in my Rolleiflex (see the previous post). I want to show these monochrome frames by themselves. Often, when color and black and white scenes are compared together, viewers are attracted to the color and consider it superior, regardless of the subject. Therefore, it is best to display each type of picture separately.

Abandoned or long-unused 18-wheeler trailers, Old Lyman Street, Asheville, NC.

Here, the monochrome image looks dramatic because of the looming clouds. But the color version shows the purple-gray of the clouds and the color graffiti on the trucks.

Former paper recycling operation, Old Lyman Street, Asheville, NC.

I think this old factory works both as a color frame and as monochrome. Monochrome is familiar because much of the documentary photography in the 20th century was black and white. But I cannot say one is superior to the other in this case. Readers, you can decide.

Photographs taken with Fujifilm Arcros film, exposed at EI=80. Camera: Pentax Spotmatic with 55mm and 35mm Super-Takumar lenses. Development: Xtol at Praus Productions, Rochester, NY. Scanning: Plustek 7600i film scanner operated with Silverfast Ai software. The Silverfast does not have an Acros profile, so I used the Kodax Tri-X 400 new profile.

The River Arts District of Asheville - expired Fuji film test

Foundy Street, River Arts District, Asheville, North Carolina.

Asheville is the largest city in western North Carolina. The site was first settled in 1784, and the town has a long pioneer and minor Civil War history. Being in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains, the beautiful setting attracted wealthy tourists during the Gilded Age of the 1880s. George Washington Vanderbilt II, youngest son of William Henry Vanderbilt, fell in love with the mountains and began construction of his monumental mansion, the Biltmore House, on the Biltmore Estate in 1889. Many visitors associate Asheville with the Biltmore, but the town also has an industrial past and some magnificent Art Deco architecture. Many of the warehouses and factories (including a tannery) were concentrated along the railroad line and the French Broad River.

Foundy Street, River Arts District, Asheville, North Carolina.

Today, the old warehouses have become the nexus of the River Arts District. From the official web page:

"The River Arts District consists of a vast array of artists and working studios in 22 former industrial and historical buildings spread out along a one mile stretch of the French Broad River. This eclectic area is an exciting exploration of arts, food and exercise.  Plan on spending a day or more visiting artists working in their studios, grabbing a bite of local cuisine or a brew and taking time to find art that's perfect for your world. "

I spent a few days in Asheville while attending The Vintage car rally and show. The weather had been variable, with some terrific downpours. One afternoon, a scavenger hunt was scheduled to start and end in the River Arts District, whose existence was totally new to me. I was too late to participate on the hunt, but the old warehouses and studios were too tempting to resist.

 

Normally, I prefer black and white when I am around old industrial infrastructure, but the brilliant paint work on the walls, the darkening skies, and pockets of sunlight spoke to me in color. I tested another roll of long-expired film that had been in my freezer, this time Fujicolor NPS160. It must have been in my film box 20 years but had been frozen all these years. I used my Rolleiflex 3.5E with 75mm ƒ/3.5 Xenotar lens, tripod-mounted, and added a polarizer for many frames. I exposed at EI = 120 and scanned the negatives with a Minolta Scan Multi medium format film scanner.

Electrical junction building, Old Lyman Street, Asheville. 

Norfolk Southern runs freight trains regularly along the tracks and shunts cars in the rail yard. The active lines are fenced off from the art district.

There was once a paper recycling operation on Old Lyman Street. All I saw was wet bales of paper and cardboard.

Numerous 18-wheeler trailers were parked at a warehouse near the paper bales. The artists had been at work, so it looks like there trailers had not moved in a long time. 

This old factory building was at one time used by the paper recycling operation, but I do not know its original industrial purpose.

Too late for the scavenger hunt. Photograph from a Moto G5 phone.

Checking out the scene. Moto G5 photograph.

Condemned Beach Houses at South Nags Head, North Carolina

Long-term readers may remember my 2010 article on the group of condemned beach houses at South Nags Head, North Carolina. In 2010, the surf zone was literally under the piles that supported the houses, and everyone assumed they would soon collapse. The City had condemned them because of exposed septic tanks.
To everyone's surprise, the houses are still standing. And now they are perched on a beautiful wide beach, courtesy of the recently-completed beach fill. I do not understand all the details, but the owners are suing the city to be allowed to re-access their properties so that they can fix them up and un-condemn them. Only in America....

The beach nourishment project was conducted between May 24 and October 27 of 2011. Hurricane Irene on August 27 interrupted the work. For safety, the dredging company moved their equipment to Norfolk, Virginia. Storm waves caused extensive adjustment of the nourished beach profile, but no loss of sand within the project area (Kana et al., 2012).  Adjustment means sand moved deeper on the profile and morphologic features like sand bars formed, but the overall volume of sand remained within the project boundaries. Because of delays in securing federal funds for a comprehensive Dare County beach nourishment project, the Town of Nags Head elected to fund an "interim" beach nourishment locally. Total sand placement amounted to 4,600,000 cubic yards. This may be the largest locally-funded beach nourishment project completed in the United States.
Some notes on beach projects:

When confronted with severe beach erosion, local, county, and Federal authorities can choose four broad classes of technical and management alternatives (Coastal Engineering Manual, 2008, Part V.3):

1. No action
2. Controlled and strategic retreat
3. Hold the line and refuse to retreat
4. Replicate or augment the natural sediment supply to the region with artificial beach nourishment.

1. The first option is often followed on undeveloped coasts, such as in National Seashores. But even the National Park Service is now selecting to add sand to some of their eroding parks.

2. The second option, strategic retreat, is politically difficult because property owners lobby their politicians to "do something" to protect their valuable beach-front property. And, towns and municipalities derive major tax revenue from beach property, whose owners are often wealthy and often only occupy the premises temporarily.

Nevertheless, in the face of rising sea level, many communities are confronting the previously unthinkable fact that some areas will be impossible to protect and maintain. Also, taxpayers from inland areas complain that wealthy beach residents voluntarily purchased their properties in hazardous geographic locations. Why should general taxpayer revenues pay for storm recovery to let wealthy people live at the beach and profit from the appreciation of their houses (i.e., capitalism for the profit, but socialize the risk)?

3. The third option, "hold the line," was popular in the early-mid 20th century. It consists of building massive sea walls or shore-front stone revetments to mark the permanent position of the shoreline. One side is ocean, the other is city. The 1900-vintage Galveston Seawall is an example of this type of project. Seawalls have many disadvantages. They:

• Are difficult to design and expensive to construct.
• Have aesthetic issues
• Require maintenance and are vulnerable to major storms.
• Are environmentally troublesome (there is little habitat in front of a concrete wall).
• Offer only limited recreational opportunities.

Because of cost, environmental, and permitting issues, we will probably not see new major seawall construction in the United States.

4. The fourth option is more and more popular around the world. A beach nourishment project has as its intent to replace sand onto a shoreface from where sand was lost over the years due to natural and man-made reasons. Most beaches around the United States are far from "natural" any more, and most are sediment-deficient because of various man-made reasons. These include:

• Dam-construction on rivers
• Sediment trapping by jetties at inlets
• Sand lost offshore due to harbor and channel dredging, followed by deep-water disposal.
• Sand-mining from beaches
• Loss of sand sources due to paving and urbanization
• Armoring of bluffs and banks

The concept of a beach fill is to pump sand onto the beach from an offshore deposit or bring in sand using trucks. The South Nags Head project is an example of hydraulic pumping from an offshore deposit.

Many critics state that a beach fill is fundamentally a failure because eventually the sand will wash away. Of course it will - that is the function of a beach! The beach serves as a flexible and sacrificial buffer to dissipate storm wave energy and protect upland development. Regular maintenance is one of the costs of living at the beach. The cost of periodic renourishment is low compared to the economic activity generated by wide recreation beaches. Think of the alternative: who comes to the coast to look at a seawall?
This is a view of the barrier island at Duck, about 25 miles north of South Nags Head. Unlike Nags Head, Duck has been relatively stable and has not suffered net beach erosion over the last half century. In this view, the Atlantic ocean is to the left and Currituck Sound to the right. The undeveloped land in the foreground belongs to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and is used for their Field Research Facility. It was originally a bombing range in World War II and reverted to the Corps of Engineers in the late 1960s. It is obvious where commercial property begins beyond the Army property. Much of the island has been so thickly developed, it is essentially urban.

On the Federal land, the first row of sand dunes is thickly vegetated. The frontal dune all along the Outer Banks was built by the Civilian Conservation Corps during the 1930s - another example that the beaches are not "natural." This is a photograph from the 43-m (120 ft) observation tower, which is used for experiments and continuous video imaging.
This is a view of the research pier.  Long-period swells are approaching almost perpendicular to the shore. This is the best view in Duck other than from an airplane!

The view north from the tower shows some palatial vacation "bungalows."
This photograph shows workers planting grass on a beach restoration project. The date and location were not recorded, but the scene is likely the Outer Banks. The National Park Service and other Federal agencies sponsored many dune and beach restoration during the late 1930s. These also served as work relief efforts during the Great Depression. Photograph from the Beach Erosion Board Archives, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (from the Coastal Engineering Manual, Part I, Chapter 3).  For more information on dune construction, see Schroeder, Dolan, and Haden (1976).

References:

Coastal Engineering Manual. 2008. Shore Protection Projects, Part V, Chapter 3. Engineer Manual EM-1110-2-1100, US Army Corps of Engineers, Washington, DC (avail. online, http://publications.usace.army.mil/publications/eng-manuals/EM_1110-2-1100_vol/PartV/Part_V-Chap_3.pdf, accessed 22 June 2012).

Kana, T.W., Kaczkowski, H.L., Traynum, S.B., and McKee, P.A. 2012. Impact of Hurricane Irene during the Nags Head Beach Nourishment Project. Shore & Beach, Vol. 80, No. 2, pp. 6-18.

Schroeder, P.M., Dolan, R., and Hayden, B.P.  1976.  Barrier-dune construction on the Outer Banks of North Carolina.  Environmental Management, Vol. 1, No. 2, pp. 105-114.

On the Beach, South Nags Head, North Carolina - 2010

East Seagull Drive, South Nags Head, North Carolina

South Nags Head is a summer playground of sun, surf, beer, and jolly good times. It's also an area of uncontrolled overbuilding on the rapidly eroding barrier island. These cottages on East Seagull Drive have been condemned because they are in imminent danger of collapsing into the surf. The view above is looking to the north, with the Atlantic Ocean to the right.The dune line is well landwards of the cottages.

The cottages were originally built on piles because in this environment, occasional flooding is inevitable. But as you can see in the photograph above, the beach has eroded so severely, the original piles were undermined. To keep the houses from collapsing, extension piles were added below the original ones. The bags are geotubes filled with sand to protect the houses. North Carolina law only allows such bags when a house is threatened. Also, North Carolina no longer allows any hard structures like rock seawalls to be erected as shore protection devices (Update: this may no longer be true as of 2020). I wish other states would follow this example.

Exposed septic tanks, South Nags Head, North Carolina

When the septic tanks are exposed (the concrete tubs above), the town or county condemns property. But then a major problem arises: what to do with the structures? FEMA formerly funded removal of houses, but I was told that the program ended. The town is taking legal action against the homeowners to remove them, but the town will not pay any of the costs. If the owners walk away and the structures collapse, the town would have to foot the bill for hazardous debris removal, not a trivial issue in the marine environment. Consider also that taking over the properties would not yield a salable commodity for the town. The town might do a beach nourishment to add enough sand to un-condemn the houses. Then they would be back on the tax rolls and generate revenue. It is an odd twist of logic.

Notice that even though only five years have passed since the disaster of Hurricane Katrina, we still are politically too cowardly to ask serious questions about whether people should live in hazardous locations, and whether municipalities have a responsibility to provide protection and services to residents of these hazardous areas. 

• Should developers be restricted by means of setback lines? 
• Why don't building codes require highly robust construction, thereby thwarting the quick buck artists who build shoddy homes and move on after selling to naive buyers? 
• Should the buyer beware? 
• Is uncontrolled building "capitalism," while spreading the rebuilding risk throughout the town/county is not considered "socialism"? 

These are all troubling questions.
The scene above shows swells from Hurricane Danielle on August 29, 2010. I took this photograph from the U.S Army Corps of Engineers' Field Research Facility (FRF) pier at Duck, NC. They are about 9-10 second period and approaching the coast at an unusually steep angle. The FRF has an excellent web page with live cameras, wave statistics, and other oceanographic data:

http://www.frf.usace.army.mil/