Virginia Barrier Islands

The Virginia Barrier Islands are a continuous chain of long, narrow, low-lying, sand and scrub

Devastating hurricanes that struck the Delmarva Peninsula in 1896 and again in 1933 caused significant shoreline erosion, and completely flooded the islands killing the pine forests and damaging or destroying many structures. Residents of the barrier islands began to leave for the mainland, in some cases taking their homes with them where they still stand today in the small towns of Willis Wharf and Oyster. The sole remaining habitation on these islands, the town of Broadwater, Virginia, was evacuated in 1936 following another hurricane.^[4] Because they are uninhabited they form an important ecological region, and several make up the Virginia Coast Reserve.^[5]

The Virginia Barrier Islands terminate to the south at the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay and are preceded to the north by Fenwick Island, a barrier spit, not a true island, spanning the Maryland and Delaware border (Transpeninsular Line). They are, in order from north to south:

• Chincoteague Pony
  .
• Chincoteague Island- was a barrier island until the mid-19th Century, when Assateague migrated so far south that it shielded Chincoteague from the ocean. Thus, now it is technically a backbarrier island, like Rogue and Skidmore islands further south.^[6]
• Wallops Island - the base of NASA's Wallops Flight Facility.
• Assawoman Island - part of Chincoteague National Wildlife Refuge
• Nature Conservancy and Chincoteague National Wildlife Refuge
  . Ironically, an inlet has now formed cutting the island physically in half, it is visible in satellite imagery. North Metompkin is very close to fusing with the mainland.
• Cedar Island - A former
  US Coast Guard station still stands on the island and is seasonally inhabited by its private owners. Despite the fact that the island was only accessible by boat, development began on Cedar Island in the 1970s and a number of lots were sold and approximately 35 summer cottages were built. Almost immediately these beach houses became threatened by shoreline erosion. The last private house on Cedar Island slipped into the sea in 2014.^[7]
• Nature Conservancy. These "two" islands are now fused into one, though the label "Revel Island" persist on maps. Parramore is one of the few islands in the chain with still-present maritime forest. ^[6][8]
• Hog Island Sheep, and the Hog Island Fig.^[9] The last permanent residents of Hog evacuated after an unnamed hurricane hit the island in 1933 and cause extensive damage, including killing the last of its extent maritime forest. To this day, a full forest has not re-established on this island.^[10]
• Cobb Island - Once also inhabited with a resort hotel, church, and small town, until the 1896 hurricane. Coast Guard Station Cobb Island was decommissioned in 1964, later it was moved to the town of Oyster. The island is now split in two due to erosion.
• Wreck Island
• Shipshoal Island
• Myrtle Island
• Cape Charles Lighthouse, the tallest lighthouse in Virginia and the second tallest in the United States.^[12]
  Smith Island is now owned by the Nature Conservancy.
• Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel
  . The island is the habitat of migratory waterfowl, shorebirds, and nesting waterbirds.