UPDATED 9/27/18: The past few weeks have been long for everyone along the North Carolina coast. We are proud to see citizens of our state stepping up to help their neighbors in need. Thank you to everyone who donated to our GoFundMe raising money for supplies needed Down East. We delivered the supplies to the Marshallberg Fire Department on Thursday, September 20th. Check out this post to read about our trip.
If you would like to donate to other organizations helping those impacted by the storm, check out the Core Sound Museum website. They have set up several ways to donate money or supplies to eastern Carteret County communities.
Our fish supply remains strong in the northern part of the state. We may see a dip in availability as folks continue to get their lives back to normal in the next few weeks, but we don’t expect a major decline. Our suppliers in Wanchese and the Northern Outer Banks were largely spared from storm damage, thankfully. Oysters will be hard to source across the state. This is due to damaged farms and state-issued water closures caused by excess rainfall and runoff.
Shrimp season may continue, or may end early. Shrimpers were out catching plenty of shrimp on Wednesday and Thursday, 9/19 and 9/20. There could be issues as fresh water flows from inland flooding to the sounds, pushing shrimp out into the ocean. This could end shrimp season early, but we’ll have to wait and see.
Blue crab season probably won’t be impacted since the crabs are concentrated in the Albermarle Sound, which was largely undamaged. Keep those steamer pots nearby, ‘cause we’ve probably got a few more weeks of blue crab season!
Blue crab meat may be harder to find. A few picking houses and distributors were damaged in the storm and may impact our supply of fresh crab meat. Again, we’ll have to wait and see.
The availability of oysters is questionable right now. Many of our farmers made it through without much damage to their farm or equipment. We won’t know the fate of the oysters themselves for a few more weeks. The stress of the storm and inland freshwater flooding heading towards estuarine waters could still do damage to oyster farms.
Here are reports from a few oyster farms and suppliers:
- Bell’s Reef – no damage
- Chadwick Creek – Chris’s house flooded. Boat sunk, farm infastructure survived but a lot of his oyster seed died
- Core Sounder – Adam has damage to his home and lost a lot of farm gear. He’s assessing his oysters this week.
- Devil Shoal – no damage
- Slash Creek – no damage
- Striking Bay – no damage
- Savage Inlet – minor damage
- Marshallberg Sturgeon & Caviar Farm – no damage
- Pamlico Packing Company – major damage to the fish house in Vandemere, luckily the IQF shrimp processing & freezers in Grantsboro were not harmed
- Surf City Crab – damage to freezer & docks. Fish house still operational
- B&J Seafood – minor damage to Beaufort Inlet Fish House, no damage to B&J in James City
We will keep this post updated as we hear from suppliers.
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