Oops.

By KRISTIN DAVIS AND JACK DORSEY

By KRISTIN DAVIS and jack dorsey

The VIRGINIAN-PILOT

HATTERAS ISLAND, N.C. – Ginger Wojciechowski’s customers are getting empty plastic bags and a friendly request with their bait and tackle purchases: Would you mind picking up some of the Styrofoam?

Styrofoam – from big chunks to tiny bits – has washed onto beaches from Cape Lookout to the Virginia border. The U.S. Coast Guard said the debris came from 21 containers that fell from a cargo ship in rough seas Sunday.

Wojciechowski, manager of Frank and Fran’s bait and tackle shop in Avon, said you could see it coming in the surf. “You would pick it up, turn around and it would be back.”

The Hapag-Lloyd vessel Paris Express was en route from Savannah to Norfolk when it lost the containers carrying some 2 million cubic feet of ceiling fans and packing material, said Coast Guard Ensign Scott McGrew of the Atlantic Beach sector office.

“We haven’t seen any evidence of actual ceiling fans yet,” McGrew said. “We assume those sunk.”

The debris was thickest from Cape Lookout to Cape Hatteras, according to a Coast Guard news release. It wasn’t listed as hazardous material, but it could still harm endangered turtles and birds that nest along the beaches, according to the release. A nor’easter that later turned into a subtropical storm was moving along the North Carolina coast Sunday when the cargo was lost.

Another nor’easter in late November brought tastier cargo to Hatteras Island – hundreds of bags of Doritos. They came from a ship on the way to Costa Rica from Wilmington, Del.

Many islanders eagerly helped with that cleanup.

This week, several government agencies and a contractor hired by Hapag-Lloyd helped remove the foam debris, the Coast Guard reported.

Anglers, beach combers and vacationers pitched in, too, said Cyndy Holda, a park service spokeswoman who distributed trash bags to local shops.

Larry and Joan Emph of Pittsburgh, who have a second home on Hatteras Island, loaded pieces of the plastic foam into trash bags and grocery bags Thursday.

“It’s unbelievable what people have done,” Wojciechowski said. “Everybody gets together and gets it done.”

Bits of plastic foam still tumbled across the sand or stuck in sea grass at Cape Point and other Hatteras beaches Thursday afternoon.

The day before, said Buxton angler Steve Groves, “it looked like wintertime in West Virginia. It literally looked like snow.”

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Reach Kristin Davis at (252) 441-1623 or kristin.davis@pilotonline.com.

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Reach Jack Dorsey at (757) 446-2284 or jack.dorsey@pilotonline.com.

(c) 2007 Virginian – Pilot. Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning. All rights Reserved.