Four Outer Banks Homes Collapse Into Atlantic During Historic Winter Storm
A violent winter storm with hurricane-force winds, towering surf, and rare snowfall has battered North Carolina's Outer Banks, causing four unoccupied homes to collapse into the Atlantic Ocean over the weekend. The dramatic collapses unfolded in the village of Buxton, where a bystander captured video of one house buckling and sliding into the churning water as waves tore through its stilts.
Dramatic Footage and Widespread Debris
Photos released by the National Park Service show mangled piles of lumber, insulation, and household debris strewn across the beach. The powerful nor'easter storm, which followed a bomb cyclone, delivered blizzard conditions to parts of the Carolinas and Virginia, bringing heavy snow, gusts topping 60mph, and high tides that proved catastrophic for the fragile barrier islands.
Since 2020, a total of 31 homes have fallen into the ocean along Hatteras Island, a grim statistic that now includes more than a dozen collapses in just the past few months. The most recent failure occurred on Tower Circle Road in Buxton, where the home was privately owned and unoccupied.
Accelerating Coastal Erosion and Community Impact
The Outer Banks' narrow, low-lying barrier islands have been eroding for years as rising seas swallow the land, but the pace of destruction has accelerated to alarming levels. Prior to this latest storm, more than two dozen houses, usually built on stilts at the water's edge, had collapsed since 2020, with most falling during extreme weather events.
The scale of the problem is stark when measured against the size of the towns being consumed. Census data shows that in 2020, Rodanthe, a community barely one square mile in size, had just 213 year-round residents but 718 homes, with only 207 of them occupied. No new houses have been built there since 2020. Buxton, slightly larger at around three square miles, reported a population of 1,181 and 972 homes.
Environmental and Cleanup Challenges
Many of the collapsed houses were once set hundreds of feet back from the shoreline, but relentless coastal flooding and beach erosion have left entire rows of properties sitting directly in the ocean, doomed to be consumed by the waves. "It's not just boards and nails," said Bill King, president of the North Carolina Beach Buggy Association, which helps coordinate volunteer cleanup efforts. "You've got fiberglass insulation, fuel, septic, all of it. And when it's moving in the surf, it's a nightmare."
In the wake of the latest failures, Cape Hatteras National Seashore has closed the entire beach along Buxton, warning that debris fields stretch for miles and that additional structures remain at risk. A spokesman for the National Seashore stated, "Surf conditions are still elevated and debris is continuing to drift southward and wash up in different beach areas. It will take time to fully assess the extent and magnitude of the debris field and develop the most effective cleanup plans."
The last collapse in Buxton occurred just over three months ago, when five homes were lost in a single stretch of violent surf. Nearby homes are also expected to completely crumble into the Atlantic as the barrier island they sit on continues to erode, highlighting the ongoing vulnerability of coastal communities to climate-driven extreme weather.
