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"There’s only really one road that goes north and south—the lifeline of the community. When those arteries flood, there are no choices…there is no different route.”​
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- Bobby Outten NCBIWA Board Member, Dare County
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The Story
Funded by SECOORA, the American Shore & Beach Preservation Association (ASBPA) and Hohonu partnered with coastal communities across North Carolina to install affordable, solar-powered tide gauges in places that had no way to monitor flooding. Built with scientific rigor yet simple to install, these sensors give residents, officials, and emergency teams real-time visibility into changing water levels - capturing events like the three-foot surge from Hurricane Ian - and providing the high-quality baseline data needed to understand flood frequency and severity, protect critical routes and services, and turn flood risk into clear, actionable resilience strategies.
Problem
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More frequent and severe flooding is disrupting daily life in North Carolina’s coastal communities—impacting school routes, trash services, and emergency access.
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Many high-risk areas lack tide gauges and real-time visibility, leaving officials without reliable data to monitor events or plan resilience measures.
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Limited resources and technical capacity make it challenging for local governments to install and maintain high-quality monitoring systems.
Stakeholders
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SECOORA – Southeast office of the Integrated Ocean Observing System, which provided majority funding for these sensors.
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ASBPA – Coordinated partnerships and facilitated community engagement.
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Coastal community partners – Including towns and state parks that hosted sensors and used data for operational decisions.
Solution
Outcomes
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Real-time flood visibility enabled residents, officials, and emergency teams to see conditions as they happened, such as the three-foot surge during Hurricane Ian.
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High-quality, science-grade data offered a reliable baseline for understanding flood frequency, severity, and long-term trends.
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Faster decision-making allowed communities to close roads, protect services, and prioritize resilience investments with confidence.
Solution
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Installed Hohonu tide gauges in priority locations to collect geo-referenced, time-stamped water-level data.
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Published open, real-time dashboards so communities could monitor flooding instantly and share information widely.
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Leveraged plug-and-play design - solar power and cellular connectivity - to simplify deployment and maintenance, even in remote locations.