I did a lot of research on Kitty Hawk this summer on one of the previous threads when the name kept popping up on jihadi posting boards. (At that time, we speculated it was probably in reference to the aircraft carrier, not the NC coastal town.)
Two things struck me about Kitty Hawk (which I have visited): its symbolism as the birthplace of flight, and it's relatively close proximity to Virginia Beach/Hampton Roads/Norfolk. Talk about an area rife with HVTs...
Also: lets not forget the scuba divers from earlier on. The relative desolation of that area during the tourist off-season could present an opportunity.
Strange addendum on lighthouses:
[1] ENVIRONMENT: Dirty Relics
In mid-November 2003, Russian authorities in the Murmansk region found out that two automated lighthouses on the Kola Peninsula in the far north had been vandalized. These lighthouses, among many built in the 1970s, had been powered by radioisotope thermoelectric generators (RTGs) powered by the decay of strontium-90. Although the casing and shielding had been taken in both cases, the canisters of strontium-90 were simply discarded, and were recovered safely.
Strontium-90 has a half-life of 29 years. Each lighthouse, depending on its function, has between 30,000 and 180,000 curies of strontium-90. For a standard of comparison, the Chernobyl accident of 1986 released 40,000 curies. The idea that terrorists might get their hands on such quantities of radioactive material to build "dirty bombs" that could contaminate public sites, rendering them uninhabitable without a huge cleanup effort, is a complete nightmare.
Al Qaeda documents seized in Afghanistan indicate that Islamic terrorists definitely have radioactive materials on their shopping list. Although the radioactive materials were recovered from the two lighthouses, at roughly the same time the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) received a report that a group of people in the former Soviet region of Moldova, far to the south, had melted down some unspecified radioactive source. The IAEA immediately sent a team to investigate and get the facts.
However alarming these events were, they were not a surprise. The Soviet Union was very fond of RTGs and over a thousand remain in use or at large today. In January 2002, the IAEA began a program to track down RTGs in the Republic of Georgia, and later in 2002 the IAEA, the US, and Russia signed an agreement to set up a program to round up loose RTGs and other sources in the Former Soviet Union. Such other sources include, for example, truck-mounted seed irradiators filled with cesium-137 powder. IAEA officials feel they have at least identified all the sources if not yet got them all under control.
Although Russia has the worst problem, the US is not entirely faultless either. Of a total of 134 strontium-90 RTGs built in the US, only 47 have been accounted for. Researchers concerned with the issue have also identified a Chinese truck-mounted irradiator that carries 250,000 curies of cesium-137. It's just more proof, if any were needed, that once a genie has been let out of his bottle it may be hard to get him back in again.
* "Radioactive Sources Move From A Concern To A Crisis" by Richard Stone, AAAS SCIENCE, 5 December 2003, 1644:1645.
http://www.vectorsite.net/f2004m03.html
I live in HVT central, as a matter of fact, and I've visited Kitty Hawk a number of times. One other possibility: it has access to the Intra-Coastal waterway, which could be considered a back door to Hampton Roads.