6 homes collapse into the Outer Banks surf as Atlantic hurricanes swirl far offshore

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Six unoccupied houses along North Carolina’s Outer Banks have collapsed into the ocean as Hurricanes Humberto and Imelda rumble in the Atlantic, the latest private beachfront structures to fall as sea levels rise due to global warming.

Five of the homes, once propped on high stilts, collapsed Tuesday afternoon in Buxton, a community on the string of islands that make up the Outer Banks, said Mike Barber, a spokesperson for the National Park Service. A sixth in Buxton collapsed overnight, the park service said on its website.

No injuries had been reported Tuesday, the Cape Hatteras National Seashore said in a post on social media.

In videos shown by the local station 13News Now, the homes Tuesday teetered on stilts, battered by the waves before plunging into the surf, clogging the seashore with debris, two-by-fours, cushions and an entire home as wave after wave rolled in.

The post said that more collapses are possible given the ocean conditions, and urged visitors to avoid an area stretching for miles south of the collapses, to stay clear of the debris.

Ocean overwash on Tuesday also prompted the state Transportation Department to close a portion of North Carolina Highway 12 on Ocracoke Island. The ferry connecting Ocracoke and Hatteras islands also was suspended Tuesday, the department said.

North Carolina’s coast is made up almost entirely of narrow, low-lying barrier islands that have been eroding for years as rising seas swallow the land. Eighteen privately owned houses have now collapsed on Seashore beaches since 2020, the park service said.

The first 11 were north of Buxton in Rodanthe, but a Buxton home fell into the surf two weeks ago.

The threat often increases when storms affect the region, as is the case with the two latest hurricanes, even as they moved further out in the Atlantic. The National Weather Service issued coastal flood advisories and warnings for parts of eastern North Carolina, and dangerous surf conditions were expected through the rest of the week.

Noah Gillam, the planning director for Dare County, which includes Buxton, said Wednesday that the most recent collapsed homes were among 35 structures that had been decertified for occupancy since late August — when Hurricane Erin churned in the Atlantic — due to erosion-related damage.

A 2024 report from a group of federal, state and local officials said that 750 of nearly 8,800 oceanfront structures in North Carolina are considered at risk from erosion. Possible solutions include shoring up eroded beaches with dredged sand or rock, or using state or federal funding to buy out threatened homes and move or demolish them — all expensive propositions.

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AP National Writer Allen G. Breed in Wake Forest, N.C., contributed to this report.

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This story corrects that 11, not 15, of the first privately owned homes that collapsed on the Outer Banks since 2020 were in Rodanthe.