Special Report: The Fight to Save Tangier Island

Legendary oceanographer and filmmaker Jacques Cousteau once said "we forget the water cycle and the life cycle are one." Those two forces collide when describing the fate of a shrinking fishing village 14 miles from the Eastern Shore - one of the last of its kind in the Chesapeake Bay. Erosion and sea level rise have already swallowed two-thirds of Tangier Island since 1850, leaving little time to save a way of life.
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[@ceciljones2695]

I’m from a small island in North Carolina, Harkers Island and there is a section of eastern Carteret County that the locals call Down East. The people speak with a very similar Elizabethian accent and also are as good a people as you will find anywhere. The similarities of our cultures are astounding and I have lived on the Eastern Shore on the mainland for the past thirty seven years but there’s a tug trying to get me back to the islands for something that I have truly missed, decency and love for one’s neighbors and Smith Island along with Tangier Island might just fit the bill.

[@notme3252]

Was there around 2000 - delicious food!!!!

[@SIC-SEMPER-TYRANNIS]

Erosion is the issue, Not Sea Level Rising. The tides still hit the dock poles here in the same places they have for my 50 yesrs.

[@Veruk22]

That's because wood floats...so they just come up with the water.

[@SIC-SEMPER-TYRANNIS]

@@Veruk22 , No, they don't. They're plugged down 16' or more in the ground. Have you ever lived or worked on the water?

[@Veruk22]

@SIC-SEMPER-TYRANNIS I know they don't man, lol. If they did float they wouldn't be vertical in the water.

[@Qarsherskiy7337gal]

​@@Veruk22then, why did you say that they did.... 😂

[@Veruk22]

@@Qarsherskiy7337gal sometimes people just need a joke. But on the internet, everything is 110% serious all the time!

[@stonew1927]

They should dump a bunch of Christmas trees along the shorelines. That would help trap sand and build up dunes that would preserve the island.

[@thomaslarus54]

This is an amazing video. I would have loved to have the opportunity to interview these people in the same fashion Wavy Ten has done.

[@nancyrhoads5609]

I see it being another issue like New Orleans. Build it up like a fishbowl and eventually it will break. All the east coast is facing this dilemma, can't see spending a fortune up and down the east coast, mother nature always wins.

[@speakstheobvious5769]

Venice figured it out.

[@alanbailey5621]

Tangier needs your dirt, send us your dirt !

[@danvining2186]

sea level rise or shifting tectonic plates and the island is sinking? sea levels have risen over 400' in the last 14,000 years with only a brief pause, stop or reversal during the Little Ice Age 1350-1850 after which warming resumed but we are also about domfor the next periodic warming period which occurs about every 1,000 years with the last roughly 900 years ago supposedly responsible for the collapse of the Mayan large cities and which couldn't survive decades of droughts since they didn't have tech and fossil fueled electricity to run pumps for irrigation other essential things. Since sea levels are rising what is the global average after taking into account the shifting of tectonic plates, some rising while others sinking cuz you don't see the evidence of actuall sea level rise in a short period of time anywhere where land sinking isn't a confounder?

[@jasonhinman6173]

The mayor stated they are losing land to erosion. The news inserted the claim of climate change. Virtually no one on the island will say the sea is rising or it's due to climate change. They all state the island is sinking. The water table of the land is rising, thus the island is sinking. This has been happening to all the Chesapeake islands

[@ceciljones2695]

Same outcome whether the Islands sinking or the sea level is rising.

[@jasonhinman6173]

@@ceciljones2695 Pretty moronic reply to my rhetorical statement. I choose to not ignore the science, otherwise we solve nothing. Blaming everything on climate change is not only incorrect, it is a lie that is perpetuated for any natural occuring event. Still wearing your mask in your car, Nimrod? Yeah, I bet you do.

[@hoodieman04]

residents need to identify as ukranian citizens so they can get some of that gubment money

[@SIC-SEMPER-TYRANNIS]

Give it up. Hog Island on seaside had a whole town that was washed away in the 1933 storm.

[@Qarsherskiy7337gal]

Dredging. Not giving up on Tangier!

[@SIC-SEMPER-TYRANNIS]

@@Qarsherskiy7337gal , you live there? Wondering if y'all could still get the FEMA grants to lift houses and bring in fill?

[@Qarsherskiy7337gal]

@SIC-SEMPER-TYRANNIS I live on a neighboring island nearby. I'm hoping there will be beach restoration and beach dunes by dredging and more raising land. Others want more rock walls a barriers.

[@SIC-SEMPER-TYRANNIS]

@@Qarsherskiy7337gal , I haven't been up there for awhile. It was bad on Tangier last time I flew in several years ago tide was way up. I live down the shore but have a yacht up to Deal Island.

[@SIC-SEMPER-TYRANNIS]

@@Qarsherskiy7337gal , funny barges full of rubble and stone pass by every day to Onancock creek. Would be best to rock wall and fill the place, and could be done so easily compared to millions wasted otherwise.

[@bromossunstarranger8706]

Sounds like the Trumpers want socialism and handouts. Quote "Give us rocks and dirt and let us be" 😂

[@maryann6800]

I visited there once and got into a conversation with the boat guy on the way and mentioned I was from California ( but roots go way back from Virginia to early colonists). I didn't want to get into a long conversation about politics so when he started talking about how much he "hated" the governor of CA, I just brushed it off. Later when my elderly mother and I arrived on the island and stopped in to the first seafood restaurant, we were completely and very obviously being ignored by the staff and never got waited on and eventually walked out. Later I realized that the boat guy I'd been talking to must've stopped in and told them I was a Californian and didn't acknowledge or agree with his hatred for the governor. For this reason, I have zero sympathy for those people and could care less if the island sinks tomorrow. Awful people!

[@dannytinney384]

Yeah, you sound like you’re from California. Everyone in the restaurant didn’t immediately stop what they were doing and come attend to you. Do you think the whole world revolves around you? The guy on the boat didn’t give two shits about you. The people in the restaurant didn’t give two thoughts about you being from California it’s all in your head and you think everything revolves around you.

[@maryann6800]

@@dannytinney384 no, they purposely ignored us at the restaurant. We sat there and waited for a very long time for someone to even acknowledge us and it never happened while they definitely saw us there and chose to clean off tables and wait on others and ignore us. It was so obvious that another patron that we saw a little later even noticed and walked up to us and said they were sorry that they treated us that way. I see you are one of those types of people too, full of negativity and hate like most trumpers. Sux to be you!

[@Qarsherskiy7337gal]

You sound delusional. All the islanders aren't conspirating against you. Blaming them all is collective punishment.

[@oldrustycars]

@@dannytinney384 He went to a restaurant. Restaurants have people called "waiters", their job is to "wait" on you. This guy went to the restaurant and was ignored, so he left. This town has tourism and seafood, nothing else. If tourists come there and are ignored, they will only have one thing left. Let the Trumpers stay there and ignore their fate as they disappear under the waves.

[@jobbins008]

Well if the mayor said they haven't lost 1 inch since the rocks, then I believe him. Give them a good dredging and more rocks!

[@Qarsherskiy7337gal]

Needs beach restoration and sand dunes with beach grasses too. Kids from the mainland can come plant them to learn about conservation and the ecosystem.

[@bromossunstarranger8706]

Not my tax dollars, you island socialists

[@jobbins008]

@@bromossunstarranger8706 Private donos?

[@stonew1927]

@@Qarsherskiy7337gal They should dump a bunch of Christmas trees along the shorelines. That would help trap sand and build up dunes that would preserve the island.

[@andytn6507]

@@bromossunstarranger8706 If that is your attitude towards it why do my tax $$ go towards crap I don't want or use? You would probably rather give $$ to countries that hate us like DC does.

[@oldrustycars]

Trump told them not to worry about it, so they are not worrying about it. I'm not worried about it, except I prefer the crazies to stay on the island and not bother the rest of us.

[@jayizzett]

Earth is flat. The bay does not curve