Rough weather has delayed repairs to storm-damaged N.C. 12, and the state Department of Transportation says the road will not be reopened before Thanksgiving for traffic to Hatteras Island.

“Unfortunately NCDOT crews have been at the mercy of the weather, and we are not where we want to be in terms of reopening N.C. 12,” said Jerry Jennings, who oversees DOT operations in Dare and 13 other northeastern counties.  “With recent weather conditions and another forecasted Nor’easter on the way, we will be unable to fully reopen N.C. 12 by Thanksgiving, but are working with the Ferry Division to accommodate the demands of holiday travelers.”

DOT has allowed four-wheel-drive vehicles to travel during daylight hours along the damaged roadway -- through sand, standing water and broken pavement -- on Pea Island and the northern end of Hatteras Island. But storm overwash closed that access several times this week. More stormy weather is in the forecast, and DOT said four-wheel-drive access might be limited to low-tide times.

Emergency ferry service continues between Stumpy Point on the mainland and Rodanthe on Hatteras Island, and DOT has expanded the schedule for its regular ferry from Swan Quarter to Ocracoke. New Dare County webcams show how many vehicles are waiting to board the ferries at Stumpy Point and Rodanthe.

State DOT Secretary Gene Conti is mentioned in Governing Magazine's list of potential candidates to run the U.S. Department of Transportation.

“I’m very honored to be on the list of so many prominent transportation leaders,” Conti said Friday. “It’s a nice recognition of the work we’ve done in the last four years in North Carolina.”

Conti was en route to his home town, Pittsburgh, for the annual meeting of the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials, where he will receive the group’s highest award this weekend. The Thomas H. McDonald Award recognizes a career of service in transportation and highway engineering.

He said the mention of his name for U.S. transportation secretary was “all speculation,” but he did not dismiss the possibility. ... [MORE]

DOT engineer Pablo Hernandez shot this photo, and others, around 8am today  to show why the N.C. 12 corridor on Pea Island is again closed for the 4WD vehicles that had begun driving through here last weekend. (Time stamp that says it was shot 5:44pm yesterday is in error, Hernandez says.)

On Oct. 28, Hurricane Sandy wiped out the tall, man-made dune and sandbags that NCDOT rebuilds every year or two in an effort to protect this most vulnerable stretch of the Outer Banks highway, just north of Rodanthe.

With this week's rough seas, there's nothing between the Atlantic and the asphalt. And in the background, the northernmost dozen or so Mirlo Beach houses are in the surf, too.

N.C. 12 was closed south of Oregon Inlet until mid-afternoon Sunday after an early-morning construction accident killed a state Department of Transportation employee working to clean up tons of sand that have covered parts of the Outer Banks highway since Hurricane Sandy closed the road two weeks ago, DOT said.

The accident occurred sometime between 1 a.m. and 1:45 a.m., DOT spokeswoman Lisa Schell said. [4 p.m. update: DOT identified the worker as Michael Brad Stevenson, 37, of Hertford, who had been a DOT employee for 15 years. He was driving a dump truck, and a second dump truck driver also was injured. The accident occurred on Pea Island just south of Oregon Inlet.]

“When the accident occurred, the road was closed to four-wheel-drive traffic,” Schell said. “There was no traffic on that road other than the DOT crews.” ... [MORE]

The U.S. Small Business Administration will open a disaster loan outreach center at Kill Devil Hills for a few days next week to help businesses and permanent residents apply for loans to cover property damage from Hurricane Sandy in Dare, Currituck, Hyde and Tyrrell counties.

The SBA office will be located at the Thomas Baum Senior Center, 300 Mustian St., Kill Devil Hills, from Wednesday, Nov. 14, through Saturday, Nov. 17, and Monday, Nov. 19. Office hours are 8:30 a.m. - 5 p.m. weekdays and 10 a.m.- 2 p.m. Saturday.  The office will be closed Sunday, Nov. 18.

Loans are available for up to $200,000 for homeowners to repair or replace damaged or destroyed real estate, and up to $40,000 for homeowners and renters to repair or replace personal property, at interest rates as low as 1.688 percent.  Some storm victims may be eligible for state grants.

Anyone unable to visit the Kill Devil Hills office can apply by phone or online via the SBA Customer Service Center at 800-659-2955 (800-877-8339 for the deaf and hard-of-hearing) or https://disasterloan.sba.gov/ela/.

When he was Charlotte’s mayor, Pat McCrory helped implement a 25-year plan that set priorities for transit investment to guide the city’s growth.  Now the governor-elect says North Carolina needs a 25-year transportation and infrastructure plan “to send a clear signal to the business community of the state’s future investment in roads, railroads, bridges, ports, airports and other infrastructure.” (See John Frank's story for more on McCrory's promises and priorities.)

People in and out of government in Raleigh have been thinking along similar lines over the past couple of years.

“We’ve done a lot of work, and we’re happy to share that with the new governor,” said Gene Conti, who has served as outgoing Gov. Bev Perdue’s transportation secretary since 2009.  “And what he does with that is up to him. There’s a lot of stuff out there, and we’re certainly sharing it with his transition team.”

A business-government logistics task force, chaired by Lt. Gov. Walter Dalton, spent two years meeting in communities across North Carolina to assess the state’s long-term economic, mobility and infrastructure needs, and it reported its findings (PDF) in June. Recommendations included further looks at developing inland ports and investing in improvements to the Morehead City and Wilmington ports.

The state Board of Transportation updated its long-range look this year with a 2040 Statewide Transportation Plan, based on a survey of expected needs and priorities from residents and local governments.  The plan predicts that the state will need ... [MORE].

The state Department of Transportation has awarded two contracts to repair Hurricane Sandy's damage to N.C. 12, the Outer Banks highway, in Dare County.

An $893,297 contract with RPC Contracting will rebuild pavement, repair sandbags and rebuild a dune in Kitty Hawk, and repair N.C. 12 pavement near the temporary bridge built on Pea Island after damage caused by Hurricane Irene in 2011.  A $186,293 contract with Carolina Bridge Co. will repair tension cables on Bonner Bridge over Oregon Inlet.

DOT also said it was working to provide access for four-wheel-drive vehicles in the sand along the N.C. 12 path, so that some vehicles will be able to travel between Hatteras Island and the mainland before final repairs to the road are completed. ... [MORE]

Thousands of flights and dozens of trains canceled. Vacationers stranded on Ocracoke. Folks stranded in the Triangle, trying to get to the Northeast, and vice versa, or sharing one-way car rentals.

We're reporting on the mess Hurricane Sandy has made for people who really needed to get somewhere else.  Please share your story: call me 919-829-4527 or email me. Don't forget your name and daytime contact info.

Throw your ticket out the window.

Amtrak isn't going anywhere north of North Carolina today. Megabus isn't going there. The airlines aren't going there, and many of them have already canceled Tuesday flights, too.

Hurricane Sandy has closed airports and canceled hundreds of trains and flights.

Check the RDU Airport homepage, and you'll see scores of cancellations. Many flights that aren't canceled yet will be canceled later.  If you have any doubts, call your airline -- if you can get through. They're flooded with phone calls.

Here are some of the latest alerts, via Twitter. ... [MORE]

View Johnston County U.S. 301 bridges in a larger map

The state Department of Transportation says it will hold a public information session Tuesday to discuss plans for replacing two bridges on U.S. 301 south of Smithfield.

The meeting will be held from 4 to 6 p.m. at the Pentecostals of Smithfield Church, 3020 S. Brightleaf Blvd., Smithfield. Engineers will answer questions about the project and discuss detour routes. Both bridges were constructed in 1926 and are classified as functionally obsolete.

The two-lane bridges, about one mile apart, carry about 11,000 cars and trucks each day. Tentative plans call for construction to start in the summer of 2015 on the U.S. 301 bridge over Holt's Lake, followed by construction of the U.S. 301 bridge over the Neuse River. Each bridge will be closed and traffic will be detoured for about six months.

Construction began this fall a few miles away on a replacement for the U.S. 70 Business bridge over the Neuse River, at the western edge of downtown Smithfield. The bridge is expected to reopen in the summer of 2013.