Oregon Inlet Bridge (Marc Basnight Bridge)

A hurricane tore open Oregon Inlet in 1846, and ever since, everything south of it has lived at the mercy of that gap. The 2.8-mile Marc Basnight Bridge, which opened February 25, 2019, is the answer to that problem — a $252 million structure built to a 100-year design life, replacing a predecessor the state DOT ranked 4 on a scale of 1 to 100. Drive it south toward Hatteras Island and you're crossing water that has shifted more than two miles since the storm that made it.