How many storms has it survived?
All of them! Seriously, no one knows. Not all were recorded. About 150 hurricanes and countless nor’easters have affected the Outer Banks since 1548, since Europeans were here (who knows how many more before Europeans arrival). This would suggest about 40 hurricanes since the lighthouse was built. On April 17, 1879, lightning struck the tower; several months later, new shallow vertical cracks in the inner wall were ascribed to this by the keepers, but are now reliably attributed to thermal expansion of the structure – in the 1980s, studies of the cracks revealed movement with temperature variations. Later, the lighthouse also survived the Charleston earthquakes of Aug 31, 1886 (3 shocks up to 7.7 on the Richter Scale) and Sept 3, 1886 – felt in Chicago.
