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As hurricanes pass offshore, more Buxton homes collapse into the sea
More beachfront homes on Hatteras Island collapsed
on Tuesday into the Atlantic Ocean.
Dare County leaders said no one was injured among the five Buxton homes that collapsed on Tuesday.
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It brings the total to 17 homes have collapsed during the
last five years in the Rodanthe and Buxton area.
Photographer Daniel Pullen posted video of a collapsed home on
Tuesday to his Instagram page.
Photographer Jennifer Koontz of Epic Shutter
Photography posted flooding video on
Tuesday afternoon, which was about an hour before high tide. She wrote that the
area had added sandbags.
On Tuesday, the North Carolina Department of Transportation closed North Carolina Highway 12 on the north end of Ocracoke Island between the National Park Service Pony Pens and the ferry terminal due to high wnids and overwash.
Dare County Manager Bobby Outten said the county has more than 100 miles of shoreline.
“How we manage that?” Outten said. “We’ve managed that with beach nourishment in the populated areas and where we have infrastructure that we need to protect, and so for the most part, that has worked.”
Outten acknowledged that the county is limited in preventing houses from collapsing.
“The county doesn’t own the beach [or] doesn’t own the land,” Outten said. “Those houses that are vulnerable, that are in the surf like that, are in the park, and so, we don’t have that authority [or] that jurisdiction.
“And so, the question becomes, how do we get those houses off of the beach before they fall?”
Humberto and Imelda remain offshore in the Atlantic Ocean. However, ocean overwash from the storms has breached the dune line and pushed deep sand and water onto the road.
WRAL News previously
reported about how many sea level rise experts believe
there are areas of barrier islands that are not ideal for development.
Rodanthe has become the focal point in the national
conversation about the impacts of climate change on sea
level rise in coastal areas.
When homes fall, they leave
behind dangerous debris that can scatter for miles along the shoreline.
Oftentimes, property owners are forced by the conditions of their insurance to wait until a home collapses. Then, they can collect their insurance money.