Moriches Inlet ( ) is an inlet connecting Moriches Bay and the

Atlantic Ocean The Atlantic Ocean is the second-largest of the world's five oceans, with an area of about . It covers approximately 20% of Earth's surface and about 29% of its water surface area. It is known to separate the " Old World" of Africa, Europe ...

. The name Moriches comes from Meritces, a Native American who owned land on Moriches Neck.The Indian Place-Names on Long Island and Islands Adjacent, with Their Probably Significations. Tooker, William Wallace. pp 144-14

/ref> It forms the eastern border of

Fire Island, New York Fire Island is the large center island of the outer barrier islands parallel to the South Shore of Long Island, in the U.S. state of New York. Occasionally, the name is used to refer collectively to not only the central island, but also Long ...

and the western border of the

barrier island Barrier islands are coastal landforms and a type of dune system that are exceptionally flat or lumpy areas of sand that form by wave and tidal action parallel to the mainland coast. They usually occur in chains, consisting of anything from ...

on which West Hampton Dunes, New York is the closest community. The inlet was present on Fire Island until it closed up during the 1800s. The inlet which split West Hampton from Fire Island was reformed by a

Nor'easter A nor'easter (also northeaster; see below), or an East Coast low is a synoptic-scale extratropical cyclone in the western North Atlantic Ocean. The name derives from the direction of the winds that blow from the northeast. The original use ...

in 1931. The 1931 storm created a geographic quirk for the western tip of the West Hampton island which is in the town of Brookhaven but in order to access it via land from Brookhaven a person must go through several miles of

Southampton (town), New York Southampton, officially the Town of Southampton, is a Administrative divisions of New York#Town, town in southeastern Suffolk County, New York, Suffolk County, New York, partly on the South Fork, Suffolk County, New York, South Fork of Long Isla ...

. Between 1933 and 1938 Moriches Inlet widened to wide and deepened with sand being deposited on both the bay and ocean. The widening subsided in 1938 when the Great Hurricane of 1938 opened up the

Shinnecock Inlet Shinnecock Inlet is the easternmost of five major inlets connecting bays to the Atlantic Ocean through the narrow Outer Barrier that stretches from New York City to Southampton, New York on the south shore of Long Island. It splits Westhampton Is ...

further east between Shinnecock Bay and the ocean. In an attempt to stabilize the deterioration of the barrier island, local authorities built groines on the inlet in 1952–1953. Local authorities have consistently urged that the inlet be kept open to allow boats from the mainland of Long Island to have access to the ocean. The

United States Army Corps of Engineers , colors = , anniversaries = 16 June (Organization Day) , battles = , battles_label = Wars , website = , commander1 = ...

took over the maintenance of the inlets and jetties in the 1980s. The Corps in turn ran into controversy with claims that the groynes and jetties were blocking the natural east to west longshore drift that replenished sand. The inlet and groynes were to be blamed for a loss of 8–10 million cubic yards of sand on Fire Island—representing a loss of of beach and a depth of 12–16 feet along the entire Fire Island beach zone. The inlet was the initial primary water access route for recovery ships following the July 17, 1996, crash of

TWA Flight 800 Trans World Airlines Flight 800 (TWA800) was a Boeing 747-100 that exploded and crashed into the Atlantic Ocean near East Moriches, New York, on July 17, 1996, at about 8:31pm. EDT, 12 minutes after takeoff from John F. Kennedy Internationa ...

, which broke up in flight and crashed into the ocean about from the inlet; throughout the night of July 17-18, boats carrying human remains and aircraft debris passed from the debris field through Moriches Inlet to the East Moriches

United States Coast Guard The United States Coast Guard (USCG) is the maritime security, search and rescue, and law enforcement service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the country's eight uniformed services. The service is a maritime, military, mu ...

station, before recovery-vessel traffic was shifted to

( to the northeast of the debris field) on July 18 due to the latter inlet's wider, calmer waters.

References

{{Fire Island , state=expanded Brookhaven, New York Fire Island, New York Inlets of New York (state) Landforms of Suffolk County, New York