Fighting the Sea - Saving the Fort
Seacoast erosion, intensified by hurricanes and other major storms, has been a problem and controversial issue at Fort Fisher and elsewhere along the North Carolina coast for decades.
Erosion at Fort Fisher intensified after the 1930s. By 1968 more than 200 yards of the original fort were underwater. Despite various plans to control erosion, the sea continued to eat away the sandy shoreline.
In the 1990s the Citizens’ Committee to Save Fort Fisher worked with officials to secure funds for a 3,040-foot stone revetment designed by the Army Corps of Engineers to stop further erosion.
The revetment, completed in 1996, has protected the remaining Civil War earthworks and U.S. 421. Hurricanes in 1996 and 1999 damaged the revetment and historic site (closing parts of it for at time), but Fort Fisher was saved from the destructive waters.
Marker can be reached from Battle Acre Road near Fort Fisher Boulevard South (U.S. 421).
Courtesy hmdb.org
