Cape Hatteras National Seashore officials advise visitors to its east-facing beaches to exercise caution through Saturday because the persistent northeast winds and breaking waves forecast for the next few days could cause coastal erosion and damage to beach houses.

The National Weather Service is calling for strong winds, dangerous rip currents and longshore currents are expected for much of the beaches from Duck to Cape Lookout, as well as portions of Onslow County, over the coming days, with waves in the surf zone that could reach up to 8 feet at times, according to its social media.

In the advisory the National Park Service issued late afternoon Tuesday, officials said the potential weather could cause the partial or full collapse of one or more threatened oceanfront structures in Buxton and Rodanthe.

Officials also note that the entirety of Buxton’s beachfront is closed because of public safety hazards associated with the presence of threatened oceanfront structures in or near the ocean.

“The proximity of these structures to seashore lands poses a serious risk to visitors walking along the beach or wading in the surf,” officials said. “Additionally, a public safety closure of a stretch of beach from the south end of Buxton to just north of off-road vehicle ramp 43 remains in place.”

Because of recent erosion concerns, Dare County GIS staff began remotely monitoring two priority areas on Hatteras Island using drone technology.

GIS staff used the drone imagery collected so far to create a new interactive map that allows the public to view and compare images of coastal erosion over time at Old Lighthouse Road in Buxton and the northern end of Rodanthe.

The map, Hatteras Island Erosion Drone Imagery, features side-by-side comparisons of aerial photos of Rodanthe and Buxton. The user can select two different dates of drone imagery taken in Buxton or Rodanthe using a dropdown menu. A tool in the center of the map allows users to compare images side by side.

The map is an active and ongoing Dare County GIS project. New drone imagery is being collected and added to the map as it becomes available.

The intent of the ongoing project is to collect continual imagery that creates a historical record of erosion to help Dare County officials and other decisionmakers better understand the changing conditions and enable them to make the most informed decisions, the county said.

“The situations in Buxton and Rodanthe are very dynamic, so we wanted to have the most up-to-date information available about the current state of the oceanfront,” Dare County GIS Analyst Kristen Stilson said in a release. “We also wanted the public to be able to see the changing conditions as they are occurring, so everyone can get a better understanding of how rapidly this situation is escalating. It is one thing to see it on the news, but with the map you will be able to see the whole landscape change by just swiping between different dates.”

For more information, contact Stilson at Kristen.Stilson@DareNC.gov or 252-475-5598. 

Popular sites and attractions along the North Carolina coast are closing Friday in anticipation of a winter storm expected to bring this weekend snow, blustery winds, dangerously cold temperatures and some coastal flooding.

The National Parks Service announced Friday morning that it is closing all of its visitor facilities at Cape Hatteras National Seashore, Fort Raleigh National Historic Site and Wright Brothers National Memorial through at least Monday morning.

Oregon Inlet and Ocracoke campgrounds were to close at noon Friday.

Portions of the beach in Rodanthe and Buxton already have been closed because the presence of threatened oceanfront structures.

In Rodanthe, the beachfront is closed from East Point Drive south to Surfside Drive. Buxton’s ocean shore is closed from the north end to near off-road vehicle ramp 43.

The North Carolina Maritime Museum in Beaufort, which has been closed since November 2024 for renovations, has rescheduled its reopening from Saturday to Feb. 21 because of this weekend’s forecast, officials announced this week.

The North Carolina Aquarium at Fort Fisher in New Hanover County will close to the public Saturday and Sunday. Updates, including plans for Monday, will be provided on the aquarium’s media pages on Facebook, Instagram and Threads.

Powerful winds, sound-side flooding, and the potential for as much as 1 to 1.5 feet of snow is expected to impact areas along the coast begging late Friday into Saturday. Residents are being urged to make preparations for the storm by Friday evening.

The combination of snow, cold and wind are expected to create life-threatening conditions.

The National Parks Service will provide operational updates its Outer Banks Group’s severe weather webpage and social media accounts.

Another unoccupied oceanfront house collapsed in Buxton over the weekend, bringing the total to 11 to fall on the Outer Banks since Sept. 16, according to the Cape Hatteras National Seashore.

The house that fell into the Atlantic Saturday night was at 46006 Cottage Ave., according to the seashore’s “Threatened Oceanfront Structures” webpage. The seashore, under the National Park Service, manages the beaches.

On Sunday afternoon, the house owner’s contractor demolished the remainder of the structure, which had remained mostly intact except for some debris and pilings that scattered along the beach, according to an Island Free Press report published Sunday.

About 20 National Park Service staff were to begin on Monday clearing a 2.5-mile section of shoreline from Cape Point to the Buxton Formerly Used Defense Site at the end of Old Lighthouse Road.

The house that collapsed Saturday is the fourth on the same street to fall since last month. The first three collapsed within 45 minutes of each other, along with two on Tower Circle Road, starting at 2 p.m. Sep. 30. Tower Circle Road had two more houses give way, one on Oct. 1 and another Oct. 2, and then a house collapsed in Rodanthe Oct. 3.

The National Park Service has continued to update the Threatened Oceanfront Structures webpage as houses fall since the government shutdown went into effect Oct. 1. The lapse in federal appropriations resulted in most National Park Service sites only partially opening and being operated by those who are considered essential, while the rest have been furloughed.

Dare County’s debris removal contractor will begin collecting Wednesday the tons of debris that resulted from a spate of oceanfront houses that collapsed within the last week, ahead of the bad weather forecast for this weekend.

County commissioners during their regular meeting Monday in Manteo discussed the aftermath left behind when eight houses in Buxton and one in Rodanthe fell between Sept. 30 and Oct. 3, littering Cape Hatteras National Seashore beaches with lumber, furniture, insulation, siding, nails and other debris for nearly 20 miles.

County Manager Bobby Outten explained that the intention was to wait until next week to bring the contractor in but decided to start sooner because of the impending weather.

“Let’s get those contractors in there to get finished taking the debris that’s there now and get it to the road so we can get it out,” Outten said. “And then we’ll deal with the weekend on Monday. We’ll see where we are. If there’s more houses and there’s more debris, then we can get the contractor back down here.”

Assistant County Manager Dustin Peele explained to the commission that last week he saw a “substantial amount of debris” at the right-of-way of Old Lighthouse Road, the designated area for private contractors to deliver what they cleaned up. The county’s contractor will pick up the debris from there starting Wednesday.

The debris field in Rodanthe was heavy for the first few miles, and then it tapered off, stretching approximately 18 miles north to Avon, Chairman Bob Woodard said in his opening remarks.

He explained that the total assessed value of these nine houses as of 2025 was $5,457,200. The houses were built between 1973 and 1998, and vary in size from about 1,130 square feet to 2,188 square feet.

One of the nine property owners has a mailing address in Dare County, three have property owners somewhere else in North Carolina, three have Virginia addresses, and two have Maryland addresses.

Woodard thanked Cape Hatteras National Seashore Superintendent Dave Hallac, who is working with a limited staff because of the government shutdown, for the cleanup that’s already taken place in Rodanthe and Buxton over the weekend.

“Ocean overwash and hazardous conditions from Thursday through Tuesday are potential,” Woodard said Monday. “As you know, today starts another high tide situation that could bring some more damage to both the Buxton area and Rodanthe with knocking down some potential other residences. So we just have to hold our breath and keep our fingers crossed.”

Brian Harris with the Buxton Civic Association reiterated during the public comment period that nine houses have already fallen and there’s “13 more in the ocean” that could fall.

Harris said that with the weather forecast for this weekend being absolutely horrible, he expects three or four more houses to fall as a result.

“There’s just no way around it,” he continued, adding they’ve “got to be smart with this nourishment and, you know, retreating is definitely the answer. You know these houses got to go.”

Harris, who told the commission that he is the official lobbyist for the association, intends to lobby in Washington, D.C., for funding to buy the houses.

He thanked the county for the work taking place to help the communities, adding “we’ll get through this, but Buxton is about to look a lot different. It already does.”

Reprinted from an Island Free Press report dated Oct. 6.

Cleanup efforts are continuing this week in Buxton and Rodanthe following the collapse of nine oceanfront homes last week — eight in Buxton and one in Rodanthe — as National Park Service crews, area organizations, and volunteers work to remove large volumes of debris scattered along the shoreline.

In Buxton, cleanup teams have already hauled away roughly 140 truckloads of debris from the beach as of Sunday, said Cape Hatteras National Seashore Superintendent David Hallac.

Large piles remain, including one near the former Navy base site that may contain a similar amount of material. Another pile near the Cape Hatteras Lighthouse measures about 100 feet long, 35 feet wide, and 5 feet high. Crews have been separating plastic, large lumber, and small lumber to facilitate disposal, and Dare County has reported eight septic system washouts in the Buxton collapse area.

“The odors from sewage were noticeable in several beachfront locations,” Hallac said. “And north of the jetty, petroleum odors were so strong on Sunday that we made the decision not to clean up in that area for safety reasons.” Petroleum smells were also strong on Saturday, but had briefly diminished enough to allow heavy equipment into the area.

Related: ‘Messy situation’: Buxton beach closed after 8th house falls

The cleanup zone in Buxton remains challenging due to its dense neighborhood layout, which caused debris to become trapped between collapsed structures, pilings, and sandbags when the homes fell. This has created a more concentrated debris field compared to Rodanthe.

“In Buxton, the water line was so high when these houses collapsed, and the area is so dense, that many of the homes and pilings and sandbags trapped this debris,” Hallac said.

Hallac emphasized that National Park Service crews have been working long hours daily alongside local partners to make progress.

“I’m extremely proud of all the National Park Service staff who have been working on this, some for hours a day, every day, and extraordinary thanks for the incredible efforts of the North Carolina Beach Buggy Association, Cape Hatteras United Methodist Men, and many community members who have come up to help,” he said.

In Rodanthe, the debris field from last week’s single home collapse extended around 18 miles, although most of that distance contained light debris, such as polyester filling, carpet padding, and small bits of wood that washed south to around Ramp 32. The initial few miles nearest the collapse site contained heavier material.

Cleanup in Rodanthe has benefited from a swift response by the homeowner, who began working on the beach the morning after the collapse and has remained actively involved. “He has worked continuously, and we worked as a team with him,” Hallac noted.

Over the weekend, the Rodanthe homeowner used an excavator to remove the remnant structure from the beach, which prevented additional debris from washing away. The North Carolina Beach Buggy Association also played a major role in the Rodanthe cleanup effort, according to Hallac.

While significant progress has been made, continued cleanup is expected in both locations.

In Rodanthe, National Park Service crews will use a mechanized beach rake to remove debris that has become buried in the sand. In Buxton, seashore staff are assessing remaining debris south of Ramp 43 to develop the next phase of the cleanup strategy.

Beachgoers are urged to use extreme caution in these areas, as nails, sharp debris, and other hazardous materials may be buried beneath the sand.

This story is provided courtesy of the Island Free Press, a digital newspaper covering Hatteras and Ocracoke islands. Coastal Review is partnering with the Free Press to provide readers with more environmental and lifestyle stories of interest along our coast.

Update 11 a.m. Thursday: The seventh oceanfront house in Buxton to collapse in less than 48 hours fell around 8 p.m. Wednesday at 46207 Tower Circle Road, Cape Hatteras National Seashore officials reported on its website. This remains a developing story.

Update 10 a.m. Wednesday: An unoccupied house collapsed overnight at 46203 Tower Circle Road, bringing the total to six since 2 p.m. Tuesday, per an update from the National Park Service on its threatened oceanfront structures webpage.

Original report of 5 p.m. Tuesday follows below:

Five unoccupied houses in Buxton collapsed into the Atlantic within 45 minutes of each other Tuesday afternoon, and officials warned that there could be more because of conditions associated with two hurricanes offshore.

Cape Hatteras National Seashore officials said that, as of 3:30 p.m. Tuesday, they were unaware of any bodily injuries associated with the collapse of the structures on Cottage Avenue and the two on Tower Circle Road.

Including the five that fell between 2 p.m. and 2:45 p.m. Tuesday, 17 privately owned houses have collapsed since 2020.

The entire beachfront from northern Buxton to the northern section of off-road vehicle, or ORV, ramp 43, is closed for public safety. ORV drivers using ramp 38 should avoid traveling to the south and anyone using ramp 43 should avoid traveling north.

The street numbers for the structures on Cottage Avenue are 46001, 46002 and 46007, and 46209 and 46211 for those on Tower Circle Road.

The National Park Service urges visitors to avoid the closed areas where the structures collapsed and to use caution along the beach south of the sites because of potentially hazardous debris.

“This is an ongoing incident; further collapses are possible due to the ocean conditions,” national seashore officials said.

The National Weather Service office in Newport, in a 3:45 p.m. Tuesday briefing, forecast a long duration and impactful swell event for coastal North Carolina associated with Hurricane Humberto, with added impacts from a strengthening Hurricane Imelda.

“Coastal flooding impacts have already begun and are expected to continue. We still expect the peak impacts to be focused through Thursday, with the greatest impacts occurring around high tide Wednesday afternoon,” forecasters said. Dangerous surf conditions are expected through the rest of the week.

The park service said plans are to announce on the national seashore’s threatened oceanfront structures webpage, go.nps.gov/cahatos, any additional collapses during the storm period.

This report has been updated to include information on the Thursday meeting.

Officials with the Cape Hatteras National Seashore urge visitors to avoid the beach and stay out of the water near Buxton where another house has fallen into the surf.

The unoccupied house at 46227 Tower Circle Road in Buxton collapsed about 4 p.m. Tuesday, according to a Hatteras Island resident.

It was the 12th house collapse on National Seashore beaches over the past five years.

A preexisting beach safety closure from the north end of Buxton to around off-road vehicle ramp 43 may need to be expanded, depending on the extent of the debris field, officials said.

Cape Hatteras National Seashore officials in a release urged visitors to avoid walking on the beach at the north ends of Radanthe and Buxton, “due to the potential for partial or full house collapses.”

The warning was issued Monday as a low-pressure weather system moving toward the area was expected to produce some oceanside and soundside coastal flooding, moderate to strong winds, heavy rain and minoring flooding, and dangerous surf conditions.

“Many threatened oceanfront structures have been damaged over the last several weeks in Rodanthe and Buxton,” the release states.

Beach drivers are advised to use caution on ocean-side off-road vehicle routes as well.

Dare County is hosting a public meeting Thursday on the problem of threatened oceanfront homes from 6 to 8 p.m. at the Coastal Studies Institute on the East Carolina University Outer Banks Campus in Wanchese and online for those who register in advance.

Reprinted from the Island Free Press

After wrestling for years to secure timely maintenance of the Rodanthe-Stumpy Point emergency ferry channel for Hatteras Island, the Dare County Waterways Commission decided Monday that the best solution would be for the county to secure the permits to have its local dredge do the work.

The commission had agreed last month to request modification of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ permit that would allow mechanical dredging of a troublesome area in Rodanthe Harbor. But after recent discussions with the Corps, Ken Willson, the county’s consultant with Wilmington-based Coastal Protection Engineering, said that in considering all the factors, it made sense for the county to explore permitting for dredging the channel to 12 feet and working as needed year-round.

“The idea for going deeper is basically to allow the Miss Katie (the county vessel) to do maintenance dredging,” Willson, speaking remotely, told commissioners at its July meeting in Manteo.

As Willson explained, the Corps is authorized to dredge “6 feet plus 2” feet deep with a pipeline dredge, but it cannot dredge in the warm months during turtle nesting season.

The permit would have to be modified to allow mechanical dredging with a bucket-and-barge, but that application would cost about $100,000 and take many months to complete. And the Corps can’t even promise that the environmental assessment would be modified.

In exploring an alternative approach, Willson said that it would cost an estimated $122,000 and take about a year to do vibracore sampling and obtain permits for the Miss Katie, not including submerged aquatic vegetation or shellfish surveys that may be required, which could increase total costs to about $150,000. Typically, the state would pay 75% of the cost of the assessment, with the county picking up the remainder.

The commission unanimously approved a motion requesting the Dare County Board of Commissioners to pursue permitting the Miss Katie to maintain the emergency ferry channel.

Commission administrator Barton Grover said that the county would seek to permit hopper and pipeline dredging, as well as bucket-and-barge, so all bases would be covered.

“The good will” the community would feel knowing that the channel was accessible, Waterways Commission Chair Steve “Creature” Coulter noted, “is worth every penny.”

Catherine “Cat” Peele, with the N.C. Department of Transportation Ferry Division, told commissioners in an earlier remote discussion during the meeting that recent test runs in the channel showed that it remains navigable, with about 6 feet of water still on the Rodanthe end where the shoaling had been an issue. Last September, Dare County paid about $100,000 to have a bucket-and-barge remove about 600 cubic yards of sand from a small area in the basin.

The Ferry Division is planning to dredge its portion of the channel in Stumpy Point in November, she added. The Corps is responsible for dredging the remainder of the channel, which was created in 2009 to provide emergency access to and from Hatteras Island when N.C. Highway 12 becomes impassable.

Also, Willson discussed a recommendation for the commission to consider extending the area for a planned cultural resource survey that is required as part of the recently approved EA that included the Hatteras Inlet bar.

The original box to be surveyed was slated to cost $87,000, he said. An extension to the east would tack on another $27,000. But then a northwest segment on the west side of that buffer is continuing to slowly migrate to the north, he added, so it would probably be worth surveying another 1,000 feet to the north, which would add one more day of work.

The thinking is that it’s cheaper to look ahead to make sure that the area that may be dredged is already covered by the cultural survey, Grover explained in a later interview.

“While they’re already there doing cultural resource surveys at the bar, we’re going to go ahead and get the Connector Channel surveyed,” he said. “Because, like Ken said, it’s a lot of mobilization costs … But once you have that contractor up here, it’s only an extra $10- $20,000 for them to do additional areas, whereas if you’re going to bring them up just for that one additional area would be like $50,000. So that’s why we’re thinking ‘Okay, while we’re up here, where do y’all think the channel may move in the future?’”

Grover said the board of commissioners will also be asked at its August meeting to approve the extended survey work.

In another matter, a question was resolved about whether it was a waste of time to include Barney Slough South in the Rollinson Channel and Silver Lake maintenance dredging project the Corps is planning for the fall. Other channels included in the project were Sloop North, the Hatteras Ferry Channel, and the Hatteras Connecting Channel. Last month, Coulter pointed out to Ronnie Smith with the Corps that the ferries don’t use Barney or the Ferry channels.

Peele, with the Ferry Division, reiterated to the Waterway Commission that the Ferry Division considers that Barney Slough was not worth dredging, and had communicated that in a recent meeting with the Corps.

“We told them even if you clean it out, it’s going to fill right in,” Peele said.

But after Monday’s meeting, Grover said that the Corps informed him that it has decided it will not dredge Barney Slough or the Hatteras Ferry Channel after all. Instead, in addition to Sloop Channel North, they will dredge the Hatteras Connecting Channel and Rollinson Channel.

“They are reconfiguring their proposed channels to be dredged,” Grover said, adding that the Corps will now maintain the route that the Ferry Division had requested.  “And that is the one that vehicular ferries have been using for several months now. That’s the one the passenger ferry always has used.

“So that’ll be good for the Ferry Division. And it’s good for the charter fishing fleet, because there is some shoaling when you leave the breakwater.”

This story is provided courtesy of the Island Free Press, a digital newspaper covering Hatteras and Ocracoke islands. Coastal Review partners with the Free Press to provide readers with more environmental and lifestyle stories of interest along our coast. 

The North Carolina Department of Transportation can begin work on a temporary solution to protect a stretch of N.C. Highway 12 in Rodanthe that frequently experiences overwash, coastal flooding and erosion — but NCDOT officials are looking for a more permanent fix.

Earlier this week, the Coastal Resources Commission unanimously approved NCDOT’s variance request to repair 1,300 feet of primary sand dune and install 1,100 feet of sandbags on the oceanside right-of-way near the visitor center for the Pea Island National Wildlife Refuge. A variance, once granted, allows coastal development that would otherwise be prohibited by commission rules.

“We hope to start the project sometime in mid-January, and it will take roughly one week to complete,” NCDOT Communications Officer Tim Hass told Coastal Review Tuesday. He said that during the project, which should cost about $400,000, there will be temporary single-lane closures in the area on N.C. Highway 12.

After a storm last month forced transportation officials to close N.C. 12 near the refuge’s visitor center, NCDOT submitted to Division of Coastal Management staff on Nov. 24 a request to modify the existing Coastal Area Management Act permit issued in 1999 that allows for maintenance work along the Outer Banks highway.

The division is under the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality and acts as staff to the commission. Division staff make permit decisions based on commission rules.

Division staff on Dec. 4 issued a modification to NCDOT’s existing CAMA major permit but “conditioned out those aspects of the proposed sandbag structure which did not meet the Commission’s Rules, including the size and color of the sandbags, the size of the sandbag structure, and the impacts to existing dunes,” documents state.

If the division denies a permit request because the proposed project is outside of development rules, the petitioner can request a variance from the commission to allow the work, which is what NCDOT did, leading to the special-called meeting held Monday morning by web conference.

NCDEQ Assistant General Counsel Christy Goebel explained that NCDOT owns and maintains the public right-of-way easement through Pea Island National Wildlife Refuge on Hatteras Island in Dare County.

“As we know, N.C. 12 provides the only roadway connection between the mainland and Hatteras Island. Beach erosion, dune loss and risk to Highway 12 have been particularly severe near the refuge visitor center,” she said.

The area has been identified as a “hot spot” since at least 2002 and is characterized by low topography and low elevations. The 2020 average annual erosion rate at the visitor center hot spot is 7.5 feet per a year, and the total width of the island there is between 3,500 and 5,800 feet, though much of that area is the refuge ponds. The space between the ocean and refuge ponds that N.C. 12 passes through is as narrow as 245 feet.

“Because of storm and tidal events, and the geomorphology of this area, the hot spot is susceptible to shoreline erosion, overwash, coastal flooding, the loss of beach and dunes, and sand cover. These circumstances can undermine the integrity of the road, making travel by the general public unsafe and forcing DOT to close the road,” Goebel said.

The Nov. 15-17 storm that severely damaged the primary dune along N.C. 12 by the refuge’s visitor center prompted NCDOT’s move to put in the temporary sandbag structure.

Goebel said that ocean overwash removed around 1,000 linear feet of dune, exposing the highway’s pavement edge to the high surf. Roadway flooding and pavement drop-off produced hazardous traffic conditions, and NCDOT temporarily closed the road to all traffic. NCDOT temporarily rebuilt the primary dune as maintenance work after the storm, under the existing CAMA permit.

Goebel said that NCDOT proposed using temporary sandbags for the project that would be white, trapezoid-shaped, woven polypropylene, an alternative to the traditional tan sandbags. Plans call for the sandbags to be placed in two adjoining rows parallel to the seashore.

The row closest to the ocean would be 6 feet high with an 8-foot base, and the row closest to land would be 4-foot high with a 6-foot base. The rows will be adjacent to each other and have a combined base of 14 feet. Both rows will be placed 2 feet below the roadway and 10 feet away from the pavement.

NCDOT plans to bring in sand to fill the sandbags and cover the sandbags after they are installed with a 6-foot-high and 20-foot-wide dune. “Sand would not be dredged from the swash zone on the beach, and there would be no wetland impacts,” Goebel said.

About 950 square feet of the protective dune will extend below the normal high-water line, as well.

Existing rules require the sandbags be tan, between 3 and 5 feet wide and 7 to 15 feet long when measured flat, with a base width no wider than 20 feet and total height no more than 6 feet. Rules also dictate that no primary dunes can be removed or located, and no part of the dune should be placed below normal high water line.

This type of sandbag has been granted variances twice before. The commission allowed for this type of sandbag to be used at the north end of Ocracoke Island, but that project didn’t come to fruition because of funding, and again in February 2022, for the north end of Rodanthe, she said.

Goebel said that division staff agrees with NCDOT “that construction of the sandbag structure and the dune and the use of the alternative bags will secure public safety and welfare, and it will preserve substantial justice as it will allow the petitioner to protect 12 in the short and midterm with alternative sandbags, while continuing to work towards a long-term solution for transportation along Hatteras Island.”

Special Deputy Attorney General Colin Justice reiterated to the commission that NCDOT officials believe there are benefits to using the alternative sandbags.

Justice, who represents NCDOT and works for the North Carolina Department of Justice, said officials believe these sandbags will be more durable. Installation will happen faster than traditional sandbags and cause less of an impact because of the way the bags are filled from the top. No hydraulic pump across the beach to fill traditional sandbags is necessary.

“We think that applying the rule strictly would prevent NCDOT from being able to do this repair as effectively, as quickly and for minimizing impacts the setback requirements,” he said.

The Division of Coastal Management’s NCDOT Project Coordinator Stephen Lane said Monday that NCDOT is looking at long-term solutions for the hot spot, and has obtained funds to study “long-term comprehensive solutions to try to keep Highway 12 open for the future,” he said.

Lane is referring to the $1.8 million grant announced earlier this year to study the 11-mile stretch of N.C. 12 between Oregon Inlet and Rodanthe on Pea Island. “The project will identify future construction projects, streamline environmental reviews, include public engagement and establish detailed, long-term plans for keeping the roadway passable during and following major storm events,” officials said in the at the time.

NCDOT Division 1 Engineer Win Bridgers states in the permit modification request dated Nov. 24 that the sandbag project is a temporary solution for maintaining N.C. 12 on the Pea Island refuge.

“NCDOT has recently been awarded a PROTECT Planning Grant from (Federal Highway Administration) to conduct a Planning and Environmental Linkages (PEL) study that includes comprehensive resiliency planning, alternatives development and evaluation, and robust public engagement for NC 12 on Pea Island,” Bridgers wrote. “Also known as Solving Access for NC 12 in Dare County (SAND), this project will establish a solid foundation for future project development and construction, with the goal of streamlining subsequent environmental review, accelerating project delivery, and securing the long-term resiliency of NC 12.”

He said that NCDOT anticipations the SAND project will determine short-term and long-term solutions for maintaining N.C. 12 on Pea Island National Wildlife Refuge.

“When those solutions are implemented, NCDOT would remove the temporary sandbags when no longer needed to protect the roadway of NC 12. With the stronger material and design, the Permashield bags can be more effectively removed when they are no longer needed. NCDOT anticipates quicker and more complete removal of Permashield sandbags as opposed to the challenging removal of traditional sandbags,” Bridgers said.

Dave Hallac called it.

Within 48 hours, the Cape Hatteras National Seashore superintendent’s prediction came true. Another unoccupied, imperiled home on Rodanthe’s ocean shore toppled into the Atlantic Ocean.

“I would not be the least bit surprised with this weekend’s king tide and elevated seas from the north winds if they collapse by Sunday,” Hallac said last week to the state’s Coastal Resources Commission. “I hope that doesn’t happen, but that’s possible.”

The house that is no more at 23241 Surf Side Drive crumbled some time during the night between Thursday and Friday. Its tattered remnants littered Rodanthe’s shore, forcing the Cape Hatteras National Seashore to temporarily close the beach.

The low-pressure system that descended on the North Carolina coast Thursday evening, whipping up strong wind gusts, elevated tides and heavy rain and the closure of N.C. Highway 12 between the Basnight Bridge and Rodanthe hindered cleanup operations.

All the while, national seashore officials kept an eye on two other threatened structures Hallac said were at imminent risk of collapse.

“This is going to be one of the most significant problems that Cape Hatteras National Seashore faces and, of course, many areas of the coast,” he said last week.

Two years had passed since Hallac last met with the coastal commission to update its members on a situation that is becoming increasingly common along the national seashore on the Outer Banks.

Hallac made the five-hour drive to Ocean Isle Beach last week to talk about what he anticipates to be a looming increase in threatened oceanfront structures as seas rise and possible solutions to address the problem.

It’s a topic, he said, that is important not only to the national seashore, “but what we’re seeing is really the tip of the iceberg,” as problems associated with coastal erosion along, not only areas of the East Coast, but also the rest of the country’s ocean shores.

Although Rodanthe’s beachfront is not the only erosion hot spot along the North Carolina coast, it has gained notoriety in recent years as house after house after house has succumbed to powerful ocean waves that are increasingly unattenuated because of the vanishing shore.

In the two years since Hallac last spoke to the commission, 10 houses have collapsed on the national seashore. Six of those, counting the house that fell last week, have broken apart and tumbled to the ocean since May.

This is occurring in spite of decades-long efforts to keep erosion at bay in, what by all accounts, is a story of how the government tried, and failed, to hold a barrier island in place.

‘The Great Wall of Carolina’

The story goes back more than 80 years, when Congress authorized the creation of the park — the first national seashore — in August 1937.

During that time, single men aged 18 to 25 could enlist in the Civilian Conservation Corps, one of a series of programs created under President Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal, a government work program aimed at lifting the nation out of the Great Depression.

Roosevelt established the conservation corps in 1933 to improve America’s parks, public lands and forests.

Cape Hatteras National Seashore was officially established in 1953. The park includes 75 miles of ocean-facing beaches spanning portions of Dare and Hyde counties.

Within its boundaries are three lighthouses, two fishing piers, two marinas, two boat ramps and three airports.

More than 150,000 people stayed overnight last year in its four beach campgrounds. During that same time, the national seashore had more than 3 million visits, ones Hallac described as long-duration, high-density visits where people rent beach homes and stay for a week.

Nine villages are either adjacent to or within the national seashore, one with a dune system that was largely built by the conservation corps.

Workers in the program erected more than 600 miles of sand fencing – called The Great Wall of Carolina – during a dune-building effort, which Hallac said was “really the beginning of the fight-the-ocean stage.”

The black and white photographs Hallac displayed on a projection screen for the Coastal Resources Commission last week showed park service employees in the 1950s planting American beach grass to try and stabilize the dunes that had been partially created by the fencing.

In all, more than 13 million square feet of grasses and millions of trees and shrubs were planted to try to hold in place the barrier island, Hallac said, adding, “which is really nothing more than a pile of sand.”

The park service had a helicopter for arial fertilizer spraying on the dunes to help make the grasses grow as quickly as possible. As erosion and storms kept sweeping away the ocean shore, workers kept pushing sand up from the sea, back onto the beach.

Significant erosion in Buxton was easily tracked at the Cape Hatteras Lighthouse. The nearly 200-foot-tall beacon was built 1,500 feet from shore in 1870.

By 1919, only 300 feet of sand separated the lighthouse from the Atlantic Ocean.

“So, it just goes to show you how fast the erosion is in some areas of the Outer Banks,” Hallac said.

After 37 years and more than $20 million, virtually the entire federal investment in the park’s beaches and dunes, the “erosion control program had been lost to erosion control,” Hallac said.

“We decided we were now going to follow most of the National Park Service processes, the same policies that we have in places like Shenandoah National Park, Yellowstone National Park, which is to allow natural processes to occur, including erosion,” he said. “Even after investing a lot to try to control this, we just determined we were not successful. We could not keep up with it and so here we are.”

Today, nearly 7,000 feet of sandbags have been placed within the park facing N.C. Highway 12 to try and protect the vital roadway from the ocean.

Debris ‘becomes part of the beach ecosystem’

The breathtakingly tragic scene of an oceanfront littered for miles by debris from a collapsed house doesn’t fully capture the full impact fallen houses have on the shore.

Tens if not hundreds of thousands of remnants of tar paper, the layer of material typically installed beneath roofing shingles, ends up buried in the sand, Hallac said.

“You never get rid of all of this,” he said. “The debris associated with these home collapses becomes part of the beach ecosystem.”

Hallac hires biological technicians in the summers to oversee sea turtle nests and shorebirds. The technicians spend several hours every week picking up septic drain-field cells, diverter boxes and other pieces of septic systems that wash down the beach and come to rest on areas of the national seashore.

The park keeps handy a stack of signs supplied by the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality’s Recreational Water Quality Program to post in the event of a wastewater spill caused every time a septic tank is compromised by the encroaching sea.

There were 23 septic spills on the national seashore between Aug. 12 and Oct. 1.

“This problem is going to get much worse with sea level rise,” Hallac warned.

A gauge the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration keeps at Oregon Inlet is tracking sea level rise at 5.56 millimeters per year, he said.

“When I started giving presentations like this it was in the 2 millimeters per year range, and this is expected to increase. But I can tell you right now, if it doesn’t increase at all, we will have a major problem based on the presence of threatened oceanfront structures,” Hallac said.

A recent study measuring erosion rates on the national seashore show that the beach is eroding and the shoreline is moving westward.

“What you’re seeing is an endpoint erosion rate of 4 meters per year and a linear regression rate of 3 meters per year,” Hallac said. “It doesn’t matter which one you pick. They’re both very rapid erosion rates.”

At these rates, he said, it’s time to start thinking about houses that are now across the street from oceanfront homes.

There are places like Avon, where dozens of houses will become threatened unless the beachfront is perpetually renourished or they are moved, Hallac said.

Those are some of the options in what he refers to as “the four Bs: build out, build back, build up, or, ultimately, build a boat.”

Beach nourishment has been successful along many areas of the North Carolina’s coast, he said, but it is not a silver bullet solution.

Renourishments are causing “an inadvertent loss of the barrier island area,” Hallac said.

“Normal barrier islands overwash. They deposit sand in the middle of the island. They build elevation and sometimes the sand gets washed over to the sound side. The marsh colonizes. You can maintain the width of the barrier island as it migrates slowly to the west. We have completely halted all of those processes. We have drowning at the interior of our barrier islands, and we now are having significant erosion of the sound side of our barrier islands,” he said.

Hallac said there had been several public meetings and expert panels where discussions centered on financial assistance, the role of public and private insurance, and legal and regulatory hurdles associated with threatened oceanfront structures.

“And I think what we’ve done is, we’ve put forward a series of ideas for further discussion that can help advocate this issue,” he said as he wrapped up his presentation. “There is no silver bullet, as I said before, but we really do need to work on this and come together to find solutions because this is a problem that is going to get worse over time.”

Commission Chair Renee Cahoon said threatened oceanfront structures are a never-ending problem up and down the North Carolina coast.

“We’re going to have to start looking at other solutions to help mitigate the damages because what we’re not covering, we’re cover the cleanup, but we’re not covering the damage of the water as well as to our sea turtles and other wildlife that’s out there,” she said. “It’s going to continue to grow I’m afraid as sea level rise keeps happening and erosion keeps getting worse.”

The sixth house to fall into the ocean in Rodanthe this year collapsed Thursday night, and Cape Hatteras National Seashore officials have temporarily closed the beach there to protect the public from the associated hazardous debris.

The National Park Service notified the public early Friday that the unoccupied structure at 23241 Surf Side Drive had crumbled into the ocean.

“Efforts to respond to and begin cleanup operations is currently limited due to severe weather conditions and the closure of N.C. Highway 12 between the Basnight Bridge and Rodanthe,” officials said, adding that they are communicating with the owners.

A look back: ‘Total mess’ after third Rodanthe house in four days falls

Visitors are being urged to avoid the beach and ocean for potentially many miles to the south of Rodanthe because of hazardous debris.

Threatened, unoccupied structures at G A Kohler Court and Sea Oats Drive are being monitored during the severe weather affecting the Outer Banks this weekend.

The Chicamacomico Life-Saving Station completed in October 1874 was the first of seven new stations to be built that year along the North Carolina coast.

To commemorate the 150th anniversary of the station opening, the Chicamacomico Historical Association held a two-day event at the site in Rodanthe.

Held Oct. 12-13, the program featured several speakers, including Rear Adm. John “Jay” Vann, commander of the Coast Guard’s Fifth District that includes North Carolina. There were presentations, rescue drill reenactments, and patriotic music performed by the Cape Hatteras Secondary School Band.

Vann called the attention of the about 80 in the audience to the heroism that was part of the job description of the stations’ crew.

He highlighted the Aug. 16, 1918, rescue of the British steamer Mirlo. The rescue resulted in all eight of the crew being awarded a Gold Lifesaving Medal, the Coast Guard’s highest honor.

The Mirlo was carrying gasoline when it struck a German mine and the fuel aboard set the sea on fire.

Vann described the Chicamacomico crew rowing through flaming waters to rescue seamen from an overturned lifeboat.

Rescuers proceeded through the flames to search for a second lifeboat, this one with 19 crewmen aboard, threw a line, and towed lifeboat to shore.

Because of the actions of Chicamacomico Coast Guardsmen, 42 of the 52 crewmen on board the Mirlo were saved.

Those values, Vann noted in his address, are still found in the Coast Guard of today,

“I think that despite the divisiveness we increasingly observe and the doubt some of us had in younger generations,” he told the audience. “You will find that the young American service members in our Coast Guard respect our heritage and those who came before us.”

Station history

When the Chicamacomico Life-saving Station opened in 1874, the maritime rescue response program was a part of the Revenue Marine Division, under the U.S. Department of the Treasury, and was the first to be staffed in the state.

The rescue program became the Life-Saving Service in 1878, and then in 1915, was established as the United States Coast Guard.

Sumner Kimball, who had been appointed supervisor of the Revenue Marine Division in 1871, worked to create a professional lifesaving service because the few lifesaving stations dotting the East Coast were incapable of carrying out an ocean rescue.

“Training and equipment were either poor or non-existent, and many of its ‘lifesavers’ were either incompetent land-lubbers or corrupt political appointees,” the Cape Hatteras National Seashore wrote in 1871 about the conditions.

Even with improvement in personnel and equipment, by 1874 it was apparent there were not enough stations for the Revenue Marine Division to fulfill its lifesaving services.

Kimball convinced legislators to allocate $200,000, around $6.7 million in today’s dollars, to build and staff new lifesaving stations.

Coastal North Carolina was identified as one of the most critical areas needing attention and seven new stations were authorized between Corolla and Avon.

Chicamacomico, went into service in October of 1874, although the official commissioning of the station wasn’t until December.

The building was decommissioned in 1954. In 1974, the nonprofit Chicamacomico Historical Association was founded to preserve the site.

Like a slow-rolling disaster, the third house in four days collapsed Tuesday afternoon into the surf along the village of Rodanthe, casting tons more construction debris into the Atlantic and onto the beaches for miles within Cape Hatteras National Seashore.

“We have 30 people that are out there right now,” Cape Hatteras National Seashore Superintendent Dave Hallac told Coastal Review Wednesday in an interview, referring to park service staff who are racing the wind and tide to pick up debris, working alongside dozens of contract workers and volunteers.

Hallac described the state of the beach after the house fell Tuesday as a “total mess.” The ocean claimed two houses on Friday.

“I would say the debris field was so dense and thick, for the first quarter-mile south of the house collapse site that it was difficult to actually walk,” he said. “And that debris field continued to be fairly significant, actually, past the Rodanthe Pier.”

The superintendent also observed a large amount of “extremely hazardous” debris in the surf being “thrown all over the place as the waves were breaking.”

According to a National Park Service press release, the park has temporarily closed the beach from G A Kohler Court to Wimble Shores North Court in Waves, including the Dare County beach access on N.C. Highway 12 in Rodanthe.

Swimmers and surfers have been warned to stay out the ocean in front of the villages of Rodanthe, Waves and Salvo, and pedestrians have been cautioned to wear hard-soled shoes in the vicinity of the beach and ocean.

The latest house collapse at 23039 G A Kohler Court follows one at 23001 G A Kohler Court that fell Friday morning and another to its south at 23009 G A Kohler that collapsed shortly after 9:15 that night.

Each of the wooden houses, built on tall pilings, were unoccupied at the time of their collapse.

In a frustrating twist, plans were in the works to proactively demolish the house that collapsed Tuesday.

Hallac said the house had been foreclosed on and the bank had hired a real estate agent, who in turn hired a local contractor to tear it down. The contractor, W.M. Dunn Construction in Powells Point, was ready to go, he said, but the work was delayed by the very same high tides and powerful currents — pumped up by a couple of offshore storm systems and the full moon — that ultimately took it down. The same house had already been damaged Friday when the nearby house at 23009 collapsed.

So instead of the demolition, the contractor will be doing the cleanup of the house debris, Hallac said.

“Trying to secure the bulk of debris between the tide cycles after the third house fell,” a Tuesday post said on the contractor’s website.

A total of 10 houses have collapsed in the last four years in the Cape Hatteras National Seashore, and W.M. Dunn and company owner Mike Dunn have been contracted to clean up most of them. 

Although homeowners are responsible for hiring the contractor to clean up the debris from their house, the situation is complicated not just by the fact that it doesn’t stay where it fell, but also that it is mixed with debris from other collapsed houses.

Homeowners are billed by the park service for the time that park service staff dedicates to cleaning debris, Hallac said. They are also asked to move or demolish houses on the eroded shoreline that are at risk of being destroyed by the ocean. But the agency, he said, is not out to punish homeowners, many of whom bought their houses when they were far back from the ocean.

“We’re focused on working with the homeowners and finding constructive solutions,” he said. “Many of these owners have owned these houses for a long period of time.”

In the first two recent collapses, remains of the structures and whatever they contained could be found 20 miles down the beach, Hallac said.

Once debris gets into the Atlantic, it’s nearly impossible, or certainly much more difficult, to retrieve. Huge boards with nails in them and pieces of fiberglass, strands of wire, broken windows — anything and everything found in a house — could bob around the ocean, be taken far away by currents or sink into the sandy bottom.

Although the ideal solution would be getting every house off the beach before it falls, the reality is that a combination of private property rights versus public safety concerns, coastal regulations and policies, insurance compensation, legal constraints, and multiple jurisdictional issues make efficient and effective responses to eroding shorelines and other climate change complexities extremely difficult.

A report released in August, “Managing Threatened Oceanfront Structures: Ideas From An Interagency Work Group,” was the culmination of multiple meetings the work group held over two years. The group was co-chaired by Hallac and Braxton Davis. During this time, Davis was the director of the Division of Coastal Management, under the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality. Since February, Davis has been the executive director of the North Carolina Coastal Federation.

According to the report, in 2020 more than 750 of about 8,777 oceanfront structures on the North Carolina coast were at risk from oceanfront erosion, a term that was defined as lacking dunes or vegetation between the structure and ocean. It also noted that “the situation is anticipated to worsen with increasing sea level rise and coastal storms.”

The task force reviewed existing policies, laws, grant funds and coastal programs, and discussed tweaks or additions to them.

None of the numerous short-term or long-term proposals detailed in the report included simple or quick solutions. For instance, one idea was updating and revising the National Flood Insurance Program, but that could require an act of Congress. Still, the report broadly outlines options and goals.

With the recent collapses, Hallac said the report is getting more attention from their partners with the state and Dare County, among others.

“Definitely, our colleagues are reading the report, and we’re having a lot of discussions about certain options that are in the report,” he said.

For instance, there is more interest in scaling up a property-acquisition program, similar to a grant program the National Seashore used recently to acquire and demolish two other threatened oceanfront structures.

“So I think there’s a lot of momentum behind the report,” Hallac said. “I can’t say there’s a specific action that has come out of it, but it has definitely been a platform for having more discussions and working towards solutions. But I will continue to say that I’m not sure there’s going to be a silver bullet,” he added. “It’s a matter of, I think, all of the ideas that are in that (report) have merit. They’re worth further discussion.”

Meanwhile, two more houses remain standing — for now — in the surf near where the other three just fell.

The second Rodanthe house to collapse into the ocean within 24 hours fell Friday night.

Cape Hatteras National Seashore officials announced that Dare County dispatch called at 9:18 p.m. Friday about the collapse at 23009 G A Kohler Court.

“Seashore law enforcement rangers arrived on scene and confirmed that the unoccupied, one-story house—the same house that sustained damages as a result of the first house collapse of the day—had 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,” officials said in a press release.

Related: Another house collapses in Rodanthe; 8th since 2020

Debris had apparently washed out into the ocean “before the bulk of it returned to the beach at the south end of G A Kohler Court.”

Park officials urge 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. Due to potentially dangerous debris on the beach and in the water to the north and south of the collapse site, temporary beach closures for public safety may be necessary.

Park officials said they are in communications with the property owner of 23009 G A Kohler Court and expect a contractor to be secured for debris cleanup.

National Park Service staff will be on the beach again today to assist with moving debris above the high tide line.

Debris has been seen for miles to the south of the collapse site.

The collapse of the house at 23009 G A Kohler Court was the ninth house to collapse on park beaches during the past four years.

Learn more about the threatened oceanfront structures that border the Seashore on its website.

Reprinted from Island Free Press

Another oceanfront home in Rodanthe collapsed Friday during the early morning hours.

This is the third home on Cape Hatteras National Seashore beaches to collapse in 2024, and the eighth since 2020.

The four-bedroom, three-bathroom house at 23001 G A Kohler Court in Rodanthe was built in 1992 and was owned by a resident of Hampton, Virginia. It was unoccupied at the time of the collapse and had a total structure and land tax value of $280,600, according to Dare County records.

National Park Service officials are urging visitors to avoid the beach and stay out of the water near the north end of Rodanthe, and potentially for miles to the south. In addition, the seashore is monitoring an adjacent house that sustained damages because of the house collapse.

Dangerous debris may be present on the beach and in the water to the north and south of the collapse site, which will likely lead to temporary beach closures for public safety.

A debris removal contractor, hired by the property owner, is expected to begin cleanup work Friday. Debris removal activities may also be conducted by National Park Service staff.

Earlier this year, an unoccupied home in the G A Kohler Court area collapsed Aug. 16 and a home at the end of Ocean Drive in Rodanthe collapsed on May 28.

In March 2023, an oceanfront home collapsed at East Point Drive in Rodanthe.

On May 10, 2022, two unoccupied homes located on Ocean Drive, collapsed within a 12-hour period. 

In February 2022 and May 2020, two additional Rodanthe homes in the Ocean Drive vicinity also collapsed into the ocean.

All of these home collapses resulted in a large debris field on Hatteras Island, which was addressed and cleaned up by the National Park Service, local volunteers, and/or contractors enlisted by the homeowners themselves.

No personal injuries were reported in connection with any of the collapses.

This story is provided courtesy of the Island Free Press, a digital newspaper covering Hatteras and Ocracoke islands. Coastal Review partners with the online publication to provide readers with more environmental and lifestyle stories of interest along our coast.

RODANTHE — Contractors on Monday continued to remove debris strewn along miles of Cape Hatteras National Seashore beaches following the collapse Friday evening of a multilevel, unoccupied beach house into the Atlantic.

No injuries were reported in connection with the collapse. Seashore officials have closed public entry to the beaches from the northern boundary of Rodanthe to the northern end of the 2.4-mile Rodanthe, or “jug handle,” bridge.

The 1,428 square-foot house at 23214 Corbina Drive was built in 1973. The four-bed, two-bath structure used as a vacation rental was sold in 2018 for $339,000, according to real estate websites.

This is the seventh structure since May 2020 to crumble into the ocean in the unincorporated community on Hatteras Island in Dare County.

Cape Hatteras seashore and Pea Island refuge teams coordinated with the owner of the house to manage cleanup, which began around 1 p.m. Saturday.

“The homeowner’s contractor continues to clean up the beach,” Seashore Public Affairs Specialist Mike Barber told Coastal Review Monday. “As of yesterday, debris was spotted approximately 11 miles north of the collapse site in Pea Island National Wildlife Refuge.”

Park officials said in an update Sunday that several other threatened structures in northern Rodanthe suffered “substantial damage” and they are communicating with the county on a detailed assessment of the associated debris and hazards.

“Coordination will occur between house owners, rental property management companies, and the Seashore once elevated surf conditions subside, and the full extent of damage is known,” officials said.

In Buxton, there is “ongoing erosion and elevated surf conditions” that have resulted in ocean overwash under many homes and into neighborhoods, as well.

“Hazardous debris, broken from beachfront houses, may be present on the beach and in the water. Seashore staff have observed evidence of compromised septic systems; therefore, the Seashore is advising that the public should not go in the water until follow up inspections are made,” officials added Sunday.

The National Park Service has devoted a webpage to the threatened oceanfront structures that border the seashore and action being taken.

Updated at 4:25 p.m. Tuesday.

Cape Hatteras National Seashore officials started their Tuesday morning cleaning up another fallen oceanfront house on National Park Service property — and they’re asking for the public’s help.

The unoccupied structure at 24131 Ocean Drive in Rodanthe likely collapsed around 2:30 a.m. Tuesday, officials said.

To protect visitors while the cleanup takes place, a milelong section of beach from Sea Haven Drive to South Shore Drive is temporarily closed.

This is the sixth house to collapse on seashore beaches in the past four years.

“Due to the direction that the debris is expected to drift, visitors are urged to avoid the beaches north of Sea Haven Drive into the southern portion of Pea Island National Wildlife Refuge. Dangerous debris may be present on the beach and in the water. Additional beach closures may be necessary as the debris spreads and cleanup efforts proceed,” Cape Hatteras National Seashore officials said.

The 1,501-square-foot, five-bedroom home with two and a half baths was built in 1970, according to real estate websites.

Officials are also asking the public to for help cleaning up the debris associated with the collapse.

The cleanup is scheduled to take place 8 to 11:30 a.m. Wednesday at the Rodanthe Pier, 24251 Atlantic Drive. Supplies will be provided.

Many of the pieces of wood that have washed up on the beach have exposed nails, so all volunteers are encouraged to wear thick-soled footwear. Those under 18 must be accompanied by a parent or legal guardian.

As of 4:11 p.m. Tuesday, 49 seashore employees, Chicamacomico Banks Fire and Rescue and a contractor hired by the property owner filled up 31 pickup trucks with debris and unloaded the debris at a nearby parking lot. The debris will be permanently disposed of in the coming days.

Varying amounts of beach debris extend from just south of the house collapse site to more than 2 miles to the north, within Pea Island National Wildlife Refuge.