Unattended Death and Biohazard Cleanup in Tangier, VA

Tangier is a town on Tangier Island in the middle of the Chesapeake Bay in Accomack County, Virginia, and it can be reached only by boat or by airplane, since no bridge connects the island to the mainland.

Tangier had 436 residents at the 2020 census, a steep drop of nearly 40 percent from the 727 residents counted in 2010.

Tangier's population peaked at 1,120 residents in 1930, so the island town has lost well over half of its people in the past century.

The people who settled Tangier Island permanently arrived in the 1770s and were farmers, but by the late 19th century the islanders had shifted to harvesting crabs and oysters from the Chesapeake Bay.

Tangier is often called the soft-shell crab capital of the world, and most of its fishermen still make their living catching and selling crabs and oysters, making it one of the last true watermen's communities in the United States.

Many Tangier residents speak a distinctive dialect of Southern American English that preserves features of 17th- and 18th-century British English, a survival that linguists attribute to the island's long geographic isolation.

Tangier Island has lost about 67 percent of its landmass since 1850 to erosion and sea-level rise, and under a mid-range sea-level-rise scenario much of the remaining land is expected to be lost within the next 50 years.

The island is extremely low-lying, with an elevation of only about 3 feet above the Chesapeake Bay.

During the War of 1812, the British built Fort Albion on Tangier Island and used it as a base for operations in the Chesapeake, including the campaign that burned Washington.

Tangier receives its mail, passengers, and supplies by boat: the mail boat Courtney Thomas runs between Tangier and Crisfield, Maryland, and seasonal passenger boats also connect the island with Crisfield, Reedville, and Onancock.