September Update on Ferry Issues
Sundae took off with our fifth grader to school this morning – not to drop her off but to the spend the day as the substitute librarian. Not surprisingly, by 8:30, I began receiving texts from her with various suggestions as to how I might put my day to productive use. One said:
Also how would you like to go to a meeting today and write about it?
It’s not really a question when you already know the answer. As she well knows, I’m one of those guys who’d rather think of himself as a drunk than an alcoholic since the latter attend meetings. She sprang this on me with such short notice there was no time to schedule a root canal and, after all, there was nothing else I really had to do today other than to take some folks out on a sunset sail (and, compared to spending a whole day with a library full of noisy munchkins, that didn’t sound like much of an excuse).
And so it was that 1 p.m. found me in a folding chair at the Community Center representing the press at the regular monthly NC Ferry Division meeting.
On the Ferry Division side of the table were deputy director Jed Dixon and Chris Bock, superintendent of the Hatteras-Ocracoke ferry route. .
Also in attendance were Hyde County Manager Bill Rich, Hyde County Board of Commissioners chair Earl Pugh, Hyde County PIO Teresa Adams, and local business owner Ann Warner.
It sort of reminded me of a recurring dream I used to have for the first few years after graduating from college:
It’s coming up on final exam week and there’s one class I’ve sort of fallen behind in, rarely putting in an appearance and even more rarely reading any of the assignments.
Feeling the need to get caught up, I slip into the classroom and take a seat on the back row. The more I listen to the professor and the other students’ discussion, the dimmer my hopes of a passing grade…
Although I actually arrived a couple of minutes before 1, a casual discussion was already underway. Mr. Dixon commented that he had been generally pleased with the way everyone coordinated the evacuation for the Labor Day Weekend storm. The group seemed to be in overall concurrence while acknowledging that evacuations are never easy. Ann Warner expressed appreciation for the rip tide warning which the Ferry Division posted on their notice board. Mr. Dixon explained that what goes up on the board is actually subject to D.O.T. approval but encouraged members of the Ocracoke community to let him know if there’s ever a felt need to post something there.
Bill Rich said that “The Thursday call was the ticket.” Meaning that commencing the evacuation in a timely manner made the process go more smoothly than it has in the past.
On the subject of passenger ferries, Dixon reported that a manager has been hired to oversee the process of getting the bids out and commencing construction. He is Ed Timmon of RK&K and he has a background in naval architecture.
There was some discussion of when to switch the Hatteras ferry operation from its six-boat summer schedule to its 5-boat winter schedule. In this (as in everything else discussed) Mr. Dixon welcomed input from the business community.
Effective January 1, 2017, priority boarding passes for commercial vehicles will no longer be issued free of charge. There was general agreement that non-resident passes should not be available for sale to just anyone who wishes to buy them but that certain criteria should be implemented. Of special concern were the ever-increasing number of tour buses. While one option would be to require the buses to use the sound ferries rather than the more crowded Hatteras ferries, Mr. Dixon expressed the opinion that the buses should be allowed to use the Hatteras ferries but without priority status.
The ferry division is working on purchasing wifi service to be available for a fee on all ferries as well as in the terminals. More on that, the tour bus issue, and the 2017 schedule will be discussed at the next monthly meeting, October 11th at 1 p.m. at the Community Center.
Well, as the rapidly-expiring Admiral Nelson said at Trafalgar, “Thank God I have done my duty!”
Actually, it wasn’t so bad. Everyone was to-the-point and businesslike. We were out of there in 45 minutes.
