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Hunched over this single task, Suzzy has been working all afternoon building the sand fortress, blind to the tide coming in behind her sunburned back.

So when the inevitable surge flattens every tower and parapet, fills in the moat and leaves the beach a clean slate, she looks briefly pained. Then a slow grin spreads across her face. She can’t possibly be surprised.

Even a 10-year-old knows this is no place to build a fortress. Let alone, an offshore oil rig. That’s why we call it the Graveyard of the Atlantic.

No, after a week of camping on the surfside north of Cape Hatteras, on the barrier that juts out into the Atlantic 30 miles east of the North Carolina mainland, we can rest our case. We need no more evidence of the power of the sea.

In the rough surf, an overwhelming riptide grips us a stone’s throw from the old Chicamacomico Life Saving Station, in waters where all the landmarks are shipwrecks. Before dawn, we wake to a violent storm sauntering over the dunes, flashing, crashing, howling at the windows of our pop-up camper, which feels like a flimsy piece of stagecraft on a set.

In fact, this is the same thin stretch of the Outer Banks where moviemakers filmed September’s “Nights in Rodanthe,” and got more location than they bargained for.

In the midst of shooting the movie about two strangers staying over when a classic Nor’easter strikes, what do you know? A classic Nor’easter struck. Which was so very Hollywood: They came looking for metaphors and found special effects.

Politicians in Raleigh and Washington, on the other hand, are a more literal breed. So what on Earth can they be thinking to entertain lifting a two-decade-old ban on offshore drilling for oil and natural gas along the North Carolina coast?

Agreed, it takes energy to fuel the local economy, to get those RVs from Quebec all the way to the Hatteras Island KOA, to power deep-sea charters as well as the small fishing boat that brought us blue crabs for dinner.

And granted, the state of the art in offshore drilling may not be what the average consumer imagines, post-Katrina. Instead of oil derricks in view of the swimming beaches, Gulf-style, these would be 50 miles out, and pipe whatever oil and natural gas they find ashore. They would also benefit from the latest in monitoring, regulation and check valve technology to avert a major oil spill.

But before we start building our sand castle, it’s fair to ask what we have to gain. According to the U.S. Energy Department, drilling off North Carolina would not result in any noticeable relief at the gas pump until the year 2030.

Is that worth all it would entail? Offshore drilling would remake the coast to accommodate refineries. It would crack into the world’s largest deep sea reef, exposing everything from plankton to grouper to humpback whales to the heavy metals contained in drilling fluid, and the toxic hydrocarbons that are by-products of drilling. And quite possibly, it would poison the vast, still-water estuaries the Outer Banks barrier protects.

Naturally, oil companies would benefit. So would politicians, who are presenting offshore drilling as a fix. First, President Bush this summer lifted the executive ban penned by his father in 1989. Not only is he making headway in persuading Democrats to let the congressional ban expire; but in North Carolina, after 20 years of bipartisan consensus on offshore drilling, the issue is a hot potato in contests for governor and U.S. Senate.

If candidates think offshore drilling will get votes, it’s up to voters to show leadership. This is our coastline, our treasure. Should we venture where fools go, and where disaster strikes as inevitably as high tide strikes a sand castle, will we really be surprised? 

Contact Lorraine Ahearn at 373-7334 or lorraine.ahearn@news-record.com