Rodanthe beach house collapses into the Atlantic Ocean, 4th in the past year
Another Hatteras Island beach house collapsed into the Atlantic Ocean on Monday, the fourth in a little over a year.
The one-story cottage at 23228 East Point Drive in Rodanthe crumbled into the water about noon Monday as a low-pressure system off the coast brought rough surf and wind gusts up to 40 mph. The house was unoccupied.
Last year, three Rodanthe vacation homes collapsed into the ocean between February and May, with several more oceanfront houses along the same stretch vulnerable to similar fates, the National Park Service said in a news release.
The park service is asking visitors to Cape Hatteras National Seashore to use caution on the North Carolina beach and in the ocean near Rodanthe. The bulk of the debris was near the collapse site.
Park officials are “communicating with the owner of the house to coordinate the removal of the house and all related debris on the beach,” officials said in a statement.
According to the Dare County property records, the 1,116-square-foot “beach box” cottage was built in 1976 and deeded to a couple from Pennsylvania in 2007. It has a total taxable value of just under $180,000.
After more than a decade of dramatic erosion in Rodanthe, debris from the collapsed homes still litters the beach, with exposed septic tanks visible in the surf.
Dare County inspectors last year examined oceanfront properties in the area, condemning eight of them and removing the electrical boxes, the county’s Planning Director Noah Gillam said. The National Park Service notified each of those property owners, urging them to move or demolish their homes before the ocean could take them. Several owners have purchased new lots and contracted to move their houses back from the shoreline.
Cape Hatteras National Seashore has implemented an emergency plan as houses fall to deploy park service staff immediately and volunteer teams within 48 hours to clean up dangerous debris from the beach.
County officials and the park service say there is no long-term strategy for the homes, or the rapidly eroding beach.
The funds aren’t there for beach nourishment and the National Park Service must get federal approval for such projects anyway, park officials say. The Federal Emergency Management Agency won’t provide funds for beach nourishment in Rodanthe because the endangered stretch of shoreline doesn’t impact transit or emergency services on Hatteras Island.
At a meeting with Rodanthe property owners earlier this year, the park service and local officials said the area’s erosion problems date back decades, but have accelerated in recent years.
Dare County officials have estimated that locally-funded nourishment projects, which are done every five or so years, would cost about $30 million for the endangered two-mile stretch in Rodanthe. Dare County’s beach nourishment funds, which are paid through vacation occupancy taxes, raised $15.7 million in 2022, and that was with record seasonal occupancy, Dare County Manager Bobby Outten said.
“In the 1980s we started this discussion,” Outten said at the January property owners’ meeting. “People thought then we were just throwing money in the ocean.”
Kari Pugh, kari.pugh@virginiamedia.com
