With Hurricane Ian expected to come ashore Friday in Georgia and South Carolina as a tropical storm and continue on up the coast, National Park System units are instituting closures or urging visitors to be mindful of the storm.

October 1 marks the 150th anniversary of Bodie Light on the Outer Banks of North Carolina, and in recognition Cape Hatteras National Seashore staff, with Outer Banks Forever and the Outer Banks Lighthouse Society, plans a ceremony on that date.

From shooflies to flying geese, it is said secret messages like the ones sewn into a commemorative quilt helped guide runaway enslaved people on the perilous road to freedom in the 1860s.

The National Park Service is facing a water conundrum: some parks have too little, some parks have too much. While an historic drought continues to parch much of the Western United States, a new report from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association predicts that sea levels across the United States will rise, on average, 10-12 inches by 2050. In other words, from Maine to Florida to Texas and all the way up to Alaska, there are more than 100 national park units threatened by the slow siege of rising coastlines.