Excerpt:
Eight homes in Buxton, and one in Rodanthe, fell into the Atlantic due to hurricanes, highlighting urgent policy needs for mitigating coastal erosion impacts.
Long before the most recent houses collapsed along Cape Hatteras National Seashore, officials had been wrestling with what policies might prevent future disasters.
Eight homes, all along the Tower Circle neighborhood in Buxton, fell off their stilts and into the Atlantic Ocean this week as a result of offshore impacts from two simultaneous hurricanes, Imelda and Humberto. Five of them fell within an hour of each other. One fell on Friday evening in Rodanthe, well north of the other eight.
Twelve homes had previously fallen in the span of five years since 2020, most of them in Rodanthe.
The eight Buxton houses to have fallen so far combined for an estimated $2.7 million in taxable building value, according to Dare County property records.
As debris cleanup began Friday, here is the latest on policies and mitigation efforts at the center of the issue…
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Outer Banks houses collapse, washed into surf by a pair of hurricanes
– USA Today
Eight unoccupied houses were claimed by roaring Atlantic surf this week on the Outer Banks — a 200-mile ribbon of barrier islands on the North Carolina coast — as Hurricane Humberto and Hurricane Imelda passed offshore.
Since May 2020, at least 20 homes have been lost.
Home to tens of thousands of permanent residents and visited by more than 2 million people each year, the region’s remote beaches, dunes and inlets comprise the “most dynamic natural landscapes occupied by man,” according to U.S. Geological Survey scientists.
