Storms Take Toll on Wild Horse of OBX

OBX – While known for their hardiness and natural survival instincts during hurricanes, at least one herd of Wild Horses of the Outer Banks took a big hit during this year’s storm. Attributed to extraordinary storm surge, 28 horses from one herd were killed in Cedar Island in Carteret County.

From WCTI 12:

“A North Carolina wild horse manager says more than half of one herd is thought to be dead after Hurricane Dorian storm surge slammed their island home.

Manager Woody Hancock told McClatchy news that 28 of the 49 horses on Cedar Island, between the Outer Banks and the mainland, are suspected dead. He says the herd is lesser-known than the Corolla heard on the northernmost parts of the Outer Banks. That herd didn’t suffer any losses.

He said 21 of Cedar Island’s horses survived, some managing to swim to safety. But dead horses have been washing up on beaches, while others remain missing.”

Hurricane Dorian, due to her trajectory, caused severe sound-side surges as it passed through eastern North Carolina, inundating places like Ocracoke and the sound side of Hatteras Island. Cedar Island, known to many in Carteret County as the ‘End of the Earth,’ is situated such that it was mommicked during during Dorian, to say the least.

While the horses are usually able to get to higher ground and cover, as the storm passed over the wind and surge direction switched quickly and sound-side flooding reportedly overwhelmed certain places in a matter of minutes.