Lighthouse seeks a beacon of hope

NAGS HEAD -- Long overshadowed by the bigger and better known Cape Hatteras Lighthouse, the Bodie Island Lighthouse is still living up to its reputation as the Rodney Dangerfield of Outer Banks beacons.

When it comes to money for badly needed repairs, the Bodie lighthouse -- the one with the black and white horizontal bands -- gets little respect. Federal funding has been delayed repeatedly, most recently in December, when it was cut from the budget in last-minute trims.

About $3 million is included in the president's 2009 budget, but lighthouse supporters are wary. Bett Padgett of Raleigh, president of the Outer Banks Lighthouse Society, a private group of lighthouse lovers, thought funding was a done deal last year.

"We thought it was a shoo-in," she said. "It will be requested again, but that doesn't mean they are going to get it."

Restoration is needed to offset 136 years of wind, weather and what a 2004 park service report called "insensitive maintenance activity." Rust has eaten away portions of the stairs inside and the decorative ironwork on the gallery at the top.

"Some steps are rusted through to the point you can't walk on them," Padgett said.

The stairway and upper portions are off limits to the public. Still, the Bodie (pronounced "body") Island Lighthouse is a popular stop for visitors to the Cape Hatteras National Seashore on the Outer Banks. Seashore officials said a survey indicated about 21,500 people visited the tower between April and October last year, when the lighthouse was open only a few hours a day.

In contrast, the Cape Hatteras Lighthouse at Buxton attracted about 127,600 people between April and October. Visitors are allowed to climb the winding stairs at Cape Hatteras, a national landmark.

Padgett said a major hurricane could bash in cracked windows and damage the lighthouse's original lens, a dazzling array of prisms that magnify the light's beam. She worries that a storm as powerful as hurricanes Katrina or Andrew could do devastating damage to the weakened tower.

The National Park Service fenced off the base in 2000 after chunks began falling from the gallery. Four years later, two chunks of cast iron, one weighing an estimated 450 pounds, broke loose after Hurricane Alex in August 2004. Emergency repairs have included lashing the top and gallery with thick cables. Mesh screen and boards shore up the sides.

"We've strapped all the loose pieces down so they aren't going to fall," said Charles Sellars, chief of maintenance for the Cape Hatteras seashore.

They aren't the prettiest repairs, he said, but they are safe enough that the base can be opened to the public.

A turbulent history

The current Bodie Lighthouse began beaming in 1872 after two ill-fated towers in the area were destroyed. The first, built in 1848, partially sank in the sand and became a leaning tower with a one-foot tilt. It was replaced 10 years later by a lighthouse that served until 1861, when it was demolished by Confederate troops to keep it out of the hands of Union forces.

Bad luck beset the current tower too, according to historical accounts. Thirty days after the light was put into service, a flock of geese smacked into the top, shattering 3/8-inch-thick glass. Lightning strikes plagued the lighthouse until 1884, when caretakers ran cable from the lantern down the center of the staircase to channel lightning into the ground.

The park service says the lighthouse cost about $146,000 when it was built -- 46 times more than the cost of the original lighthouse and five times more than the cost of the second structure.

Sellars said the $3 million would include major restoration of the ironwork that would allow public access to the 214-step stairway for the first time.

If money is approved in the 2009 budget, Sellars said, preliminary work on the Bodie Island light could get under way later this year.

"We're optimistic, but concerned," he said.