A severe storm in 2015 flooded and destroyed a recreational beach parking lot at Chincoteague National Wildlife Refuge in Virginia, exposing the growing difficulty of maintaining visitor facilities on a shifting barrier island. According to the US Fish and Wildlife Service, the refuge is now relocating the recreational beach and its parking facilities about 2.5 miles north to a more stable location. The new site is designed to maintain roughly the existing parking capacity while reducing repeated storm-repair costs and allowing the old developed area to return to natural beach, dune and saltmarsh habitat. The relocation is intended to work with the island's natural movement rather than continually rebuilding infrastructure in an increasingly vulnerable location.
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