Russians Invade Outer Banks

Tourist Areas Import Service Industry Workers

If the mountains of North Carolina represent my heart and home, then the coastal areas of our state represent that part of my soul that is anchored in wanderlust. I’ve never met a single person who was originally from the Outer Banks, but I sure know a lot of people who like to spend their free time there.

The sound of the surf, the feel of the sand between your toes, the invigorating way that the undertow threatens to carry you out to sea—all of those things bring out the pirate in us ocean lovers. No wonder that the coast of North Carolina attracts such mavericks. Modern day pirates of the beach include the legion of metal detector guys who scour the shore in the morning hunting for jewelry, coins and gifts from the sea. It’s hard to imagine those guys in suits and ties, punching the clock at regular nine and five intervals.

Manned with metal detectors, treasure hunters comb the Outer Banks every morning. Photo by Jeff Eason

After spending a week in Nags Head, I am reminded of the basic things that the mountains and the beach have in common. Both areas are currently struggling with important issues such as traffic, development, tourism and the ecology. Whereas the Boone area is trying to avoid becoming another Gatlinburg, the Outer Banks tourist towns of Nags Head, Duck and Kill Devil Hills are struggling to avoid becoming another Myrtle Beach. It’s a hot-footed walk across the sand on that fine line between acceptable growth and over-development.

Another issue confronting both the mountains and the beach is how to supply a tourist area’s service industry with enough workers to make the vacation machine run. During the peak of tourist season, Nags Head requires thousands of fry cooks, waitresses, cashiers, lifeguards, maids, hang gliding instructors and other workers to do its dirty work. Many of the jobs are seasonal and none of them pay enough to live comfortably at the beach.

“Magic Mike” Stoffel has been making a living as The Outer Banks Clown for over two decades by appearing at birthday parties, grand openings and other special events. Photo by Jeff Eason

If you examine the types of houses being built at the beach, you realize that nothing is really being done to address the lack of affordable housing for its service industry. The same is true for our area where developers are currently petitioning to build houses on a fifth of an acre so they can sell them for a quarter million dollars under the auspices that they are providing Watauga County with “affordable housing.”

If the issue is not addressed in a realistic manner, the mountains and the beach areas of North Carolina will end up with a situation similar to that in Vail and Taho out west. Maids and restaurant workers in those areas live in apartments and trailer parks far outside of the resort areas and are bused in and out each day. That situation is already happening in Boone as more and more service industry members are commuting from neighboring counties and Tennessee.

The lack of affordable housing at the beach is already affecting the number of American college students spending their summers there. Just about every other waitress, hostess or grocery store employee I encountered at the beach spoke to me with an Eastern European accent. They were generally college aged women who were courteous, helpful and couldn’t say “y’all” if their lives depended on it.

According to statistics from Pathways International in Kill Devil Hills, the town just north of Nags Head, an estimated 1,500 certified international workers are employed on the Outer Banks this summer. Most are Russian and most are employed in the seasonal service industry. For example, the six Food Lion stores on the Outer Banks employs about 300 of these foreign workers—mostly Polish and Russian college students—during its busy season of ten to twelve weeks in the summer.

When I was in college in the 1980s, landing a position as a waitron, maid or landscape worker at the beach was the summer job equivalent of striking gold. These days, college kids can save more money by staying where they are and going to class during the summer. College tuition and rent at resort areas such as the beach are two items that have skyrocketed in the past twenty years making these sorts of summer jobs more a matter of nostalgia than of reality.

I wonder how long college kids will be able to afford living in Boone during the summer? Will we eventually have to contact Pathways International and have the company bring in some Russian gals to wait tables at the Dan’l Boone Inn?