Chronicles of Change: Using Oral History to Document Climate Change on the NC Coast (2024)

Undergraduate: Tara Hinton

Faculty Advisor: Elizabeth Frankenberg
Department: Environmental Studies, Sociology

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The frequency of storms, such as hurricanes and nor’easters, is increasing due to climate change (Pörtner et al., 2022), exposing coastal communities to renewed surges of threats. Following the rampage of Hurricane Florence in 2018, many coastal communities were left ravaged in both small and pervasive ways. This oral history project, conducted with 11 individuals, documents how residents of “Down East” Carteret County, NC remember Hurricane Florence and other climate-driven changes and in their local environment. Though early environmental oral history has long been interested in the impacts of catastrophic events, little research has been done on the slow violence of climate change in local contexts. Interviews suggested that Hurricane Florence represented a unique turning point in public memory and residents’ personal climate adaptation and a desire for greater local input in post-disaster funding allocation. Environmental changes, such as the widespread development of ghost forests, are alarming and disheartening to community members, though many do not attribute environmental changes to sea level rise. Though preliminary, this work highlights the role of oral histories and archives as a toolkit for decision-makers attempting to humanize climate adaptation, reveal fine-scale environmental injustices, and implement reciprocity in climate communication.