Six homes have collapsed into the churning Atlantic Ocean surf in North Carolina's Outer Banks. Photo / Hatteras Island Community Emergency Response Team
Six homes have collapsed into the churning Atlantic Ocean surf in North Carolina’s Outer Banks, the latest in what has become a common sight in recent years along the state’s erosion-plagued coast.
First on Tuesday afternoon (local time), five unoccupied houses surrendered to the sea in the small town of Buxton, located on Hatteras Island.
Three were along Cottage Avenue; two others were on nearby Tower Circle Road. The collapses occurred between 2pm and 2.45pm, and no injuries were reported. Then later that day, a sixth house, on Tower Circle Rd, collapsed, according to local media reports and an online post from the Hatteras Island Community Emergency Response Team.
The seas remained rough on Wednesday (local time), as officials warned of localised flooding.
Officials with the United States National Park Service urged visitors to stay away from the sites of the crumbling homes and to use caution for kilometres to the south “due to the presence of potentially hazardous debris” on the beach and in the surf.
The agency called the situation “ongoing”, warning that further collapses were possible because of the rough ocean conditions fuelled by hurricanes Humberto and Imelda churning offshore.
Photos and videos from Buxton showed massive piles of lumber, shingles and other debris sloshing in the rough surf.
Wave heights at a buoy east of Cape Hatteras exceeded 4.5m, as winds from Humberto and Imelda created powerful ocean swells that extended hundreds of kilometres from the centres of the storms.
The waves reaching the North Carolina coastline were particularly powerful, with a dominant wave period of 15 seconds, referring to the time between wave crests. The longer that period, the more energy the waves carry.
These long-period swells build into large, forceful breakers that rush far up the beaches. Even as the storms swirl out to sea, big and dangerous waves are expected to continue, bringing a risk for coastal flooding, beach erosion and property damage to the Outer Banks through the end of the week.
Dare County, which encompasses a large swath of the Outer Banks, warned residents to prepare for potential coastal flooding into tomorrow. Officials said portions of NC Highway 12 along Hatteras Island “may become impassable at times, particularly during high tide”.
The collapses came roughly two weeks after another unoccupied home crumbled into the surf in Buxton – that two-storey house also was on Tower Circle Rd.
Over the past five years, 18 homes have collapsed in the Rodanthe and Buxton areas, and many others remain imperilled along that stretch, which is home to some of the most rapid rates of erosion and sea-level rise on the US East Coast.
“This is becoming a regular occurrence,” said Rob Young, director of the Programme for the Study of Developed Shorelines at Western Carolina University.
Young has been an advocate for coastal communities to more thoughtfully – and proactively – move people and assets out of harm’s way as seas rise and storms grow more intense and frequent.
“Often, we hear the refrain from coastal communities that we aren’t going to retreat from the oceanfront,” he said.
“We are retreating. We are just doing it in an unmanaged way, rather than a managed way. … We are doing it in the worst possible way.”
Young noted that house collapses create an eyesore and a safety hazard for public beaches. Septic systems unearthed by erosion are a public health threat.
Each incident has economic impacts that reverberate throughout the community and affect other properties and businesses. Until policymakers put in place ways to avoid such calamity, it will keep happening up and down the coast, he said.
“This is not just a North Carolina problem,” Young said. “There are homes teetering on the edge in a lot of places.”
Wednesday, October 1 update: another home collapsed overnight in Buxton, bringing the total to 6 so far. There has been...
Posted by Hatteras Island Community Emergency Response Team on Wednesday 1 October 2025
In the Outer Banks, the deepening problem has left some homeowners scrambling to elevate their homes or move them farther from the pounding surf, sometimes at a cost of hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Some owners have run out of time before seeing their houses and investments collapse.
Local and federal officials have continued to struggle with how to address the problem, which has no simple remedy.
In 2023, the Park Service proactively purchased two precarious homes on East Beacon Rd in Rodanthe for more than US$700,000 ($1.2m). It promptly tore them down before they could collapse and turned the area into a public beach access.
Employing that approach on a broader scale is difficult, in part because governments have little funding for such buyouts, and there is little political will for retreating from threatened shorelines in a concerted way.
Homeowners in the area, meanwhile, have wrestled with the unenviable options of surrendering their homes to the sea or spending large sums in an effort to buy time.
Many have also pushed for beach nourishment projects, which have been used in some places but not yet in others. Studies have found that such an option could prove expensive and short-lived.
- Brady Dennis is a Pulitzer Prize-winning national reporter for The Washington Post, focusing on environmental and climate stories, primarily around the Southeast. Ben Noll contributed to this report.
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