The business will virtually be dead. I don't understand the limited access for the highway, but I guess that's not for me to understand. It seems like a superhighway to the Outer Banks. Dozens of empty cardboard boxes are stacked outside near the rusted ice bin, and a hand-painted sign says that Nowarah has shrimp, bloodworms and crawlers for sale. Nowarah has run the seafood business for about a dozen years, making much of his money from sales to fishermen.
Business is best in summer, when the tourists come through in never-ending waves.
That will change when the new highway is built. They ain't going to get off that thing to come into Roper when they ain't too far from the beach. The Washington County commissioners voted unanimously in 1996 to oppose the plan for a limited-access freeway. The sales generated by traffic to and from the Outer Banks can make or break the businesses of the County. But last August, the commissioners switched gears and wrote to Garrett in support of the proposed highway, which would have four interchanges in the county.