RODANTHE — It’s as awesome as it is awful to watch the ocean take down a house, as happened again last week on an eroded beach in Rodanthe.
Once again, the ocean’s power was pumped up by a storm, this time Hurricane Ernesto churning far offshore, and once again, the stunning image of the otherwise sturdy looking house swaying on its pilings before collapsing into the surf was caught on video and shared with national media.
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It’s the seventh house within the Cape Hatteras National Seashore to be taken by the sea over the last four years. But it undoubtably will not be the last.
“I’m so disappointed in what happened,” Cape Hatteras National Seashore Superintendent Dave Hallac told Coastal Review Monday. “But I’m not the least bit surprised.”
Related: Cleanup continues after beach house collapses in Rodanthe
Hallac said he received a phone call at about 5:30 p.m. Friday informing him that the unoccupied house at 23214 Corbina Drive, which was teetering in the surf for days, had fallen.
State and federal laws currently seem powerless to prevent houses on eroded beaches from continuing to fall into the ocean and spreading debris for miles over public and private lands. Homeowners cannot collect on their National Flood Insurance Program policy until the house is destroyed, and even then, only up to a maximum of $250,000.
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Last year, the National Park Service, through a pilot program, was able to buy out two threatened oceanfront homes that it later demolished, but the grant program is limited.
So for now, homeowners who can’t afford to move their houses from the ocean, or those who don’t have the land to move it to, have few if any options to get it off the beach.
In addition to correspondence from Dare County, the National Park Service had sent letters of concern to the owners on June 5 and again on Aug. 14, Hallac said.
After the collapse, the superintendent said, the owners hired contractor Mike Dunn of W.M. Dunn Construction, LLC, of Powells Point, who has handled numerous cleanup operations on seashore property. Even though the contractors were limited by the heavy surf conditions from doing the heaviest work, they began gathering large pieces on Saturday and making piles on the beach.
“We appreciate that the owners have moved quickly to begin cleanup,” Hallac said.
Typically, the longshore current carries everything to the south, but in this instance the hurricane swell was moving to the north, Hallac said. By Sunday, the chunks of wood and nails, siding, insulation, PVC piping and other construction debris had traveled about 11 miles to near the N.C. Highway 12 Canal Zone. The majority of debris washed up by the north entrance to the new Rodanthe Bridge.
Beaches are closed from the northern boundary of Rodanthe to the northern end of the Rodanthe Bridge, or “jug handle bridge.” The park service and officials at the Pea Island National Wildlife Refuge are also warning swimmers and beachgoers to avoid the beaches and stay out of the water around all areas of the beaches and surf in Rodanthe.
Purchased in 2019
According to Dare County records, the 1,516-square-foot house, which had four bedrooms and two bathrooms, was built in 1973. It was purchased in 2019 for $339,000 by David M. Kern and Teresa T. Kern of Hershey, Pennsylvania. The deed lists the lot at the time as 10,018 square feet.
Coincidentally, Hallac had displayed the rapid rate of erosion on the section of beach in front of the Corbina Drive house as part of a broader, more general presentation about the national seashore on Aug. 12 in Buxton.
In a photo dated July 30 included in the presentation, the house was shown up against a dune, with all its pilings in dry sand and numerous feet of beach between it and the ocean. But in another photo taken Aug. 12, the pilings were in the surf, the dune was gone and the house was listing toward the ocean.
“You can see how dramatic the change was,” Hallac told Coastal Review, referring to the photo comparison. “And just a few days later it collapsed.”
Five other houses in the area of GA Kohler Drive in Rodanthe are also now sometimes standing in surf, even at low tide, he said. Some have various damages, including pilings that sway back and forth, and broken pools, beach accesses, decks and stairs.
Dare County Planning Department Director Noah Gilliam said that two septic systems in Rodanthe and one in Buxton were at least partially compromised as a result of Ernesto. Also, he said, about 23 structures had minor damage from the storm. In addition, there were about a dozen houses that had previously been characterized as threatened oceanfront structures.
Gilliam said that ocean water sitting, or even surging, under a house is not in and of itself a rationale to suspend occupancy certificates — properties are decertified only if aspects of damage is covered in the North Carolina building code, such as nonfunctional septic systems, compromised electrical systems, and lack of egress and ingress.
The Corbina Drive house, he said, was decertified Aug. 8. The house was also decertified on April 1 after showing signs of structural failures of some pilings, stairs and the septic. The house was recertified July 16, he said.
Gilliam said that the owners had another lot across the road and he believed they had been investigating moving their house there at the time it collapsed. Although he has no details, Gilliam said he knows from permits for other houses that were moved that it is expensive to move a house even to the other side of a lot. Moving it across a road requires additional permits.
A larger house that was moved about 100 feet back from the ocean on the same lot, for instance, was estimated in its permit to cost about $350,000 to move, he said.
The owner of the house at 23214 Corbina Drive requested that his name not be used but told Coastal Review that marine engineers who were consulted before the house was purchased said it would be fine for a while, and the other lot was purchased as a contingency for later years.
“We really weren’t aware (then) of the erosion rate,” the owner said, adding that the real estate agent did not raise any concerns about the issue.
Although the house was damaged earlier this year, he was caught off guard with how fast the beach disappeared this month.
“This was just way unexpected,” he said.
Although the house is gone, he said he appreciated the help and kindness of the people of Rodanthe.
“It’s a beautiful community,” he said. “We enjoyed our time there — we enjoyed it very much. Unfortunately, the amount of beach erosion is far more than we ever considered.
“We’re heartbroken at the loss of our home,” he said.
