In between, they made-do with unreliable ferry transportation and Outer Banks resourcefulness.

It would be 3 1/2 months before they got it back. 26, 1990, Hatteras and Ocracoke islands lost their only land link to the mainland. Moments before the dredge rammed the span, the last vehicle on the bridge had reached safety. At 1 a.m., the captain notified the Coast Guard. Dragging its anchors, straining against wind gusts up to 90 mph, the 200-foot vessel lumbered intractably toward the bridge. The storm-tossed dredge, working earlier on the east side of the bridge, had lost its moorings at about 10:30 p.m. With it went the telephone and electric power lines that ran under the bridge. It wasn’t until the next morning that the women, then owners of the Island Ragpicker, learned that the 130-foot high dredge Northerly Island slammed into the Bonner Bridge at 1:28 a.m., causing a 370-foot section to collapse about an hour later into the swirling Oregon Inlet. The equipment’s close proximity was remarkable enough to comment on, she said, but not ominous enough to interrupt their hurried journey. “Right there - the crane and everything.” “We looked to the left, and there was the dredge,” Baker recalled in an interview last week. Bonner Bridge, they spied something odd looming in the darkness, just off the span. A hard nor’easter was pounding the Outer Banks as Mickey Baker and Carmie Prete hustled home to Ocracoke Island that October night 20 years ago, intent on beating the heavy weather before Highway 12 flooded.

Dredge knock up 500