A photo provided by Cape Hatteras National Seashore shows debris associated with a house collapse in Rodanthe, N.C., on Sept. 20, 2024. North Carolina park officials were warning visitors to avoid the beaches of the Outer Banks in Rodanthe this weekend after two houses collapsed into the ocean within hours of each other. (Cape Hatteras National Seashore via The New York Times)
North Carolina park officials were warning visitors to avoid the beaches of the Outer Banks in Rodanthe this weekend after two houses collapsed into the ocean within hours of each other.
In the early hours Friday, an unoccupied house on G.A. Kohler Court collapsed, the National Park Service said in a statement.
Cape Hatteras National Seashore authorities said they had been monitoring an adjacent house that had sustained damage because of the initial house collapse.
But a few hours later, the Dare County Sheriff’s Office received a call that the second unoccupied house had also collapsed “and apparently washed out into the ocean before the bulk of it returned to the beach at the south end of G.A. Kohler Court,” the park service said in an updated statement.
Rangers on the Cape Hatteras National Seashore, a 70-mile stretch of shoreline that includes the beach in front of Rodanthe, warned visitors to avoid all beaches there. Photographs of the damaged homes posted by park officials show crumbled piles of debris.
“The Seashore urges visitors to stay out of the water and wear hard-soled shoes when walking on the beach to avoid injuries from hazardous floating debris and nail-ridden wooden debris,” the park service said.
Authorities said they were working with the owners of the properties to secure a contractor to clean up the damage.
Debris associated with the first collapse Friday stretched about 9 miles to the south of the site.
The most recent collapse is the ninth in Rodanthe in the past four years. Four of those collapses took place this year.
For those on the Outer Banks, the destruction has been a stark reminder of the larger force at play — climate change, which is making storms more intense and sea levels higher, accelerating the erosion of beach fronts.
One property that fell into the ocean last month may have collapsed because of the powerful waves produced by Hurricane Ernesto hundreds of miles away, in addition to high tides.
c.2024 The New York Times Company. This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
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