Until early October, 2010, Sunset Beach will have the last pontoon bridge crossing the Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway. The current pontoon bridge was constructed by the North Carolina Department of Transportation in 1961. It replaced a cable swing bridge built in 1958 by Mannon C. Gore. Development of the island began after Gore purchased the island in 1955 from the Brooks Family and the International Paper Company. Incorporation occurred in 1963.

Beginning in 1983, Sunset Beach property owners opposed construction of a high-rise bridge such as those approved for Holden Beach and Ocean Isle Beach. Opposition and lawsuits continued for a quarter of a century. The cost for a new, high-rise bridge for Sunset Beach, documented in my blog on Brunswick Voice of the Wilmington Star News, rose from an estimated $5.2 million to nearly $32 million. During those years the North Carolina Department of Transportation spent as much as nearly a half million dollars per year to maintain the old bridge. In 2006 NCDOT spent under $3,800 to maintain the nearby high-rise bridge on Ocean Isle Beach. In FY 2009-2010, NCDOT spent $262,910.57 more on the Sunset Beach Pontoon Bridge than it did on the neighboring Ocean Isle Beach Bridge.

The bridge tender opens the bridge for commercial vessels regardless of the time. This causes additional delays for vehicular traffic. In 2005 the Average Daily Traffic was 4,300 vehicles per day. By 2007 the Annual Average Daily Traffic had increased to approximately 7,000 vehicles per day. It continues to increase. Scores and sometimes hundreds of vehicles are delayed on both the island side and the mainland when the bridge opens. In the right-hand photo below, sail boats pass through the bridge. Vessels on the waterway take precedence because the Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway was constructed before the bridge.

I have business cards saying that, by moving here, I traded traffic signals for mesmerizing waves. Little did I know that I would spend hours sitting in my car or pacing near it blocked by a railroad crossing gate waiting for the bridge to gyrate or stopped by the bridge traffic signal. In the photo on the right below, two fishing trawlers caused an extra opening of the bridge.

During that quarter century of delays, both vehicular traffic and boats were held up daily, wasting fuel and ruining people's schedules. Visitors are stranded on the island and mainland for many hours at a time when part of the bridge breaks. During 2009 the cable, affecting thousands of people, broke nine times.

The most serious issue was and continues to be safety. Getting a person off the island during a medical crisis such as a seizure, heart attack or attack by a Portuguese Man of War takes a long time. Emergency crews have delays reaching persons in need on the island. Large ladder trucks cannot cross the bridge because of weight. Beach fires spread rapidly. One fire fighter told me that half of the houses on the island could burn down if trucks were unable to respond to a fire call.

The bridge tender house	A lone fisherman at dawn

In December 2007 Judge Louise Flanagan refused to grant an injunction requested by the Sunset Beach Taxpayers Association and the Brunswick Environmental Action Team to deny construction of the high-rise bridge. That allowed NCDOT to award the contract. The opponents withdrew their lawsuit.

The contract was awarded to English Construction Company, Inc. of Lynchburg, Virginia. On February 19, 2008, English Construction staff, along with NCDOT engineers, arrived on the site. Soon afterwards workmen began to clear trees and do other preliminary tasks.