After six months in the dark, the beacon of North Carolina s historic Cape Hatteras Lighthouse blazed again this fall, warning ships of a treacherous coast and signaling its own escape from a watery grave. It wasn t until October, though, that Randy Knott could relax completely. That s when the 208-foot brick lighthouse, the world s tallest, was securely mounted onto its new foundation. We had planned the move in such detail that when executed, it went just like clockwork, says Knott, CE 69. There were never any conditions that were completely unexpected.
Workers install electrical monitoring devices outside and inside.
Workers chisel and blast out the granite base below. When it was built in 1870, the lighthouse was 1,600 feet from the ocean. But by this summer, the surf had eaten away all but 120 feet of sand. Knott and the team moved the lighthouse 2,900 feet to the southwest, but because of curves in the coastline, it s once again 1,600 feet from the surf. Without the move, Knott says, the lighthouse was 10 to 20 years from toppling into the ocean sooner if a hurricane came along and eroded its foundation.