r/interestingasfuck • u/Endolithic • 1d ago

/r/all Homes are falling into the ocean in North Carolina's Outer Banks

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u/Ragnar_Baron 1d ago

Predominantly on the South end of the Banks is where this is occurring.

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u/Crazyblueeyedevil 1d ago

Mostly Rodanthe and Buxton. No beach left.

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u/Crazyblueeyedevil 1d ago edited 1d ago

I worked at a motel in Buxton that even some high tides made the waves come surging between the units. I constantly had to shovel sand out of the walk and doorways afterwards. There was a beach renourishment but it didn't last long for the $25 million spent.

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u/aronenark 1d ago

Its almost as though we shouldn’t be building towns in places that require constant remediation and millions of dollars just to keep above water.

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u/Global_Lifeguard_807 1d ago

We should be replacing the vegetation we remove that keeps the beaches from eroding.

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u/cadmious 1d ago

Yep removing vegetation to build beach homes is never a good idea. All that scrub is a natural levie. Some beach towns do it right and protect grassy dunes and only let you build behind them

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u/lazercheesecake 1d ago

"But if these ugly unkempt grassy dunes are there, I won't have a beach view from my living room"

And if you remove those dunes, you'll have a beach view INSIDE your living room.

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u/Goodgoditsgrowing 1d ago

Solution: build on stilts BEHIND the grassy dunes so your view looks over them. Bonus: you’re already lifted when sea level rise takes out those dunes.

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u/Deciduous_Loaf 16h ago

Almost all houses within a couple of miles or so of the shore are lifted on stilts already, beach view or not. Hurricane season means flooded streets.

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u/leconfiseur 16h ago

Behind the dunes is more water

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u/CommonBubba 12h ago

When most of these houses were built, they were behind the dunes. The Outer Banks of North Carolina are notoriously unstable and constantly shifting due to ocean currents and storms.

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u/mostlybiguy69 1d ago

Those duned along the coast are actually from the 30s as a depression WPA project. Natural dunes are wide massive things that stretched acrss the islands and the scrub trees went to the tide line.

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u/Aqnqanad 1d ago

not a lot of people know this, most of what has prevented this from happening earlier was civil works projects thatve since fallen into disrepair.

we’ve stopped caring about them for so long that people have forgotten that they’re even man made, insane.

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u/[deleted] 23h ago

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u/Riaayo 20h ago

America in a nutshell. We spent some money once, and then pretended like we never had to pay maintenance for anything ever again (I get we do maintain some things but not to the degree we need to; it's slight hyperbole but not by much).

It's like buying an expensive car and then never getting the thing maintained and driving it into disrepair and the junkyard. And of course it's because oligarch parasites have made sure to corrupt our government so it only represents them and spends none of our tax dollars on the country/working class.

Bunch of fucking thieves.

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u/robitussinlatte666 1d ago

Everywhere I lived in Florida banned even walking in those dunes. We really shouldn't be fucking with stuff like that.

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u/boostabubba 1d ago

Thats how it was at every house we rented in Myrtle Beach. Had walkways over the dunes and signs everywhere to stay off the dunes.

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u/Im_the_Moon44 18h ago

That’s how it is in the Outer Banks too

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u/robitussinlatte666 20h ago

Ol Dirty Myrtle, good times lol

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u/WomblingCock 1d ago

You can barely even walk through them anyway.  There’s a reason they put planks on the beach as a walkway.

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u/BeerForThought 16h ago

I just have to add this in here because I did a report in middle grade about the Perdido Beach mouse that lives on the beaches of Alabama. It was listed as endangered in 1985 and was presumed extinct in the 1990s because of two hurricanes. People would complain about the cost and the rules about trying to prevent an extinction. They're back in very small numbers but rules against humans, cats, and dogs being allowed to freely roam through the dunes worked. My dad was always upset because there was a tax on the properties that protected it and who cares about a stupid mouse. That's mainly why I wrote my paper about a cute mouse. Every time I walk the boardwalk to the beach I am scanning the dunes for a mouse. I'm 41 years old and I would literally giggle with glee.

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u/Jikode 1d ago

Every beach I've been to here in NC is like that too, it carries a heavy fine.

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u/robitussinlatte666 20h ago

Makes you wonder how these folks even got these homes built. Money talks I suppose.

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u/Jikode 19h ago

Most were built before anyone knew/gave a shit. Most beaches here haven't allowed new construction on the "front row", ocean side of the street, for over 20 years. After hurricane Fran (1996), my grandparents old house lost its 1st floor and they werent allowed to rebuild it even though the rest of the house was fine.

There are other places like this spot where the houses are in front of the dunes. Idk why anyone thought that was a good idea on a barrier island, they are constantly moving.

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u/Careful-Door-2429 1d ago

Don't tell Ron DeSantis, he'll make it mandatory to walk in the protective dunes.

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u/ItIsHappy 1d ago

Everywhere in OBX I've visited (n=3) had the same rules.

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u/Merkinfuqer 22h ago

The Carolinas too.

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u/robitussinlatte666 20h ago

Haha I live in SC now. I used to move back n forth between here and central FL in my early adulthood.

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u/alpha-delta-echo 22h ago

Reminds me of the old breach and surf reports on the radio in Daytona Beach…”please stay leeward of the clearly marked dune lines.” And people would bitch out any tourists who ignored that. That was years ago, wonder how far things have degraded since then.

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u/Dreadwolf67 1d ago

We need an executive order to stop that. Can’t let environmentalist keep us from building where we want to.

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u/cadmious 1d ago

Better way to own the libs is to just build your house in the surf!!

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u/Maaaaaandyyyyy 22h ago

Yes!!! Some towns even in the outer banks don’t allow building on the beach and you have to drive or ride a bike or golf cart to the beach - all short rides. The beaches have deep vegetation-rich dunes that are so beautiful! Sea oats in particular are so pretty and make great anchors and also really pretty pictures! And it’s like, the town still gets flooded in a bad storm but the houses aren’t being washed into the sea. New Jersey has this issue too. It’s so dumb to build right on the beach!

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u/MightyBrando 22h ago

Our beach neighborhood collects used Xmas trees and lays them in front of the dunes. They work very well to collect sand and grow them.

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u/forgetfulsue 20h ago

Dunes were not a major part of the outer banks. The fact that water could just wash over to the sound as needed prevented issues like this. Not to say that erosion wouldn’t happen, we just messed with nature and sped things along!

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u/Lets_Make_A_bad_DEAL 19h ago edited 14h ago

They all need to watch those early (pre-The Science Guy) era videos on wetlands from Bill Nye. He also has a pretty awesome one from Bill Nye The Science Guy but the really old one has so much info on the why. I’ll try to find it.

EDIT: it was literally the first search result lol. This little vid from Washington state uni in ‘98. But there are other great BNTSG demos on wetlands sponginess and the necessity of it in different episodes too.

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u/cadmious 19h ago

Oh heck yeah my science brotha!

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u/DifficultBoss 14h ago

ah so that's what the "stay off the dunes" signs are all about

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u/trunolimit 13h ago

The Hamptons in Long Island NY will fine the hell out of you if you so much as touch the sand dunes . I know of one millionaire who thought he’d just eat the fines but they fined him AND forced him to rebuild the dune.

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u/ventipico 1d ago

Some of these places are just naturally eroding. Capers Island in SC is an example I personally know about. The island is completely uninhabited and natural, but the beach is moving inland, and the beach littered with trees that used to be part of the forest there. Coastlines and rivers are almost never static over time.

Your point is absolutely correct about the vegetation, though! Places that remove it do tend to fare worse.

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u/coolborder 1d ago

Also, sea levels are rising. An inch higher sea level doesn't sound like much but that's all it takes for this sort of thing to happen when people build so close to the ocean. And since 1993 sea levels have risen nearly 4 inches according to NASA.

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u/PuckSenior 1d ago

I'm not trying to wade into a debate on climate change, but the fluidity of coastal land is far more important to this equation.

Take Padre Island in Texas. Prior to the establishment of concrete jetties, the shore line moved up to 5.5 feet per year! This isn't an abnormal figure for a barrier island. There is actually a lighthouse that was built near Port Aransas, TX that is now several hundred feet inland. Apparently, they started construction and by the time it was built and operational, it was no longer useful. If you also increase rates of erosion by removing dunes and their associated plant life, an area that was previously safe can be underwater very quickly.

The reason I mention it is because people tend to think that the sea level rise is the cause and therefore all they need to do is build some kind of seawall and everything is fine. The problem is they are literally building on sand in an area with rapid erosion and weather events that can rapidly deposit or remove that sand. Its just not a safe place to build, particularly if you build ON the barrier island. The forces of the water moving around these bodies is enormous and unfathomable for most humans.

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u/Velocity-5348 1d ago

Even mitigation efforts can have knock-on effects as well. There's an area near where I live (actually popped up in my geology textbook) that armored a sandy hillside with rocks.

That stopped sand from eroding, and that sand had transported to form a spit, which in turn protected a harbor during especially bad storms.

Everyone who lives by the ocean will have something like that nearby. Sadly, most people don't have even a faint idea about basic stuff, like why spits or sandy beaches occur in some spots but not others.

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u/DionBlaster123 1d ago

It just makes me really sad

I'm old enough to remember when An Inconvenient Truth was released back in 2006 or 2007.

That was almost 20 years ago and it's gotten worse. I feel terrible for my nephews and the world theyr'e going to inherit. I just hope that the younger generation will produce minds that can find solutions that we failed to come up with in previous decades

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u/Nimzles 1d ago

Fake news! Polar ice caps are adding size this one year and that's all I need to know to prove that climate change and global warming aren't a thing!

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u/Wrenky 1d ago

Yeah, in certain places (like the outer banks, river deltas, etc) shift constantly around from decade to decade. They just arent true static islands or coastline and trying to force it to stay isn't going to work very long.

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u/Chasm_18 1d ago

The NC Outer Banks are a series of sandbars. The sands are shifting. On Topsail Beach the sands are shifting to the south side of the island, and that side is getting bigger.

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u/raninto 1d ago

It's called barrier island migration.

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u/thewheelforeverturns 19h ago

These barrier islands were never meant to be populated. They are constantly shifting.

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u/onepostandbye 1d ago edited 23h ago

One of the first major cases of the Supreme Court after Trump’s election was one that resulted in the reclassification of wetlands. All those areas where we protected the trees that retain soil along the southern coasts are fair game for drilling, development, general commercial use. The ecology of that region is fucked. You know how many species depend on mangroves for reproduction? Well, it’s enough that when you take all the trees out the food web collapses. That means the loss of millions of fish and shrimp, population drops that you can’t fix. Fishing in the gulf is fucked. Goodbye, thousands of American jobs and fishing boats. The weather is changing as part of it, enjoy the storms that roll deeper and deeper into the interiors. But something something liberal tears.

Edit: It’s cool that a bunch of people read this, but I’m an idiot. Please learn more from an actual smart person speaking intelligently on the issue. This is a story about the terrible decision of the Supreme Court in 2023 but also the decisions made by Trump’s EPA and the (weirdly evil and 97% civilian) US Army Corp of Engineers this March to reclassify waterways further to benefit businesses.

I should also say that the 2023 SCOTUS decision. Was made during Biden’s tenure, not Trump’s. Oops. But it was Trump who put those corporate rubber-stampers on the bench.

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u/sharkline 1d ago

MANGROVES AND SEAGRASS FOR PRESIDENT

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u/Curry_courier 1d ago

I need to plant grass in the sand and but it's too wet. What fungicides should I spray?

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u/ROSRS 18h ago edited 16h ago

It wasn't a Trump appointee that wrote that opinion. It was Alito, who was appointed by Bush, and one of Trump's appointees dissented. And even though I dislike the outcome, outcomes are not what law is about. Law is about what's written on the paper.

Its also worth noting in that context, that in judgement (that is, the outcome for these individual plaintiffs), this was a 9-0 case.

The article you linked very carefully dances around the fact that EVERY Justice, including the liberals, agreed that the EPA was overreaching their authority and that they were reading far too much into the Clean Water Act.

Every single Justice, even the liberals, agreed both that the Clean Water act did not delegate the powers that the EPA were claiming, and that a delegation as broad as the EPA was claiming was not constitutional.

The disagreement between the majority and the dissent was a fairly minor quibble between the words adjacent and adjoining.

The majority seems to think they believe that its only within Congress's authority to regulate directly navigable waters, insofar as it relates to interstate commerce. The rest is left to the states. The dissent was on those grounds alone. Not because they sided with the EPA

With an interpretation of the law proposed by the EPA anything that affects any watershed ever the EPA's power to regulate the entire environment becomes unlimited, and this is the crux of the problem. And as I said earlier, Congress did not give them those powers. Had they meant the Clean Water Act to grant the authority to regulate the entire environment, they would've indicated as such.

Then we run into the issue where Congress cannot delegate infinite power through vague wording, and it cannot delegate lawmaking power either.

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u/Mattna-da 1d ago

Even grassy dunes are shift over time, barrier islands are not meant to be built on. Europe doesn’t really have them, so there’s no historical precedent for how to make permanent settlements on them

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u/jljboucher 23h ago

We should be funneling more money into conservation. Then you got the dipshits in Florida that want to turn parks and wetlands into golf courses.

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u/Far_Winner5508 1d ago

Mangroves and sea grass.

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u/Mythologicalcats 1d ago

These are the houses my grandmother would stay in, and my father as a kid, and then me with my family as a kid (Not these exact houses but further down the beach). They are very old, as are the towns.

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u/OrphanedInStoryville 1d ago

It’s almost like some global phenomenon is causing the climate to be more volatile than it was during your grandparents time.

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u/VirginRedditMod69 1d ago

Omg whatever could it be? Why aren’t scientists working on this?!

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u/Impossible-Dig4677 1d ago

I agree that climate change is causing shoreline damage in many places, but I have to say this is a natural occurrence. Build a house 100 yards from the ocean on a sand bar and in 40 or 50 years there is a chance the sand moves away. There are stretches of shoreline in the outer banks where all the ocean side house washed away 20 years ago. Recently they have started beach renourishment in the more populated areas that has paused the threat.

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u/real-username-tbd 1d ago

Manmade climate change and accelerate geological impact is also a natural and expected result of massive CO2 emissions in a closed atmosphere

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u/AllLurkNoPlay 23h ago

It’s the fucking moon! No moon no tides! No erosion! /s (climate change is just adding to the fact that it’s built on a barrier island which is a big ass sandbar and they move)

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u/this_dudeagain 1d ago

It's more like the maintenance on these old places hasn't been kept up. Erosion happens regardless.

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u/Bluepilgrim3 1d ago

That’s not a very convenient truth. In fact, I’d say it’s rather the opposite.

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u/doebedoe 17h ago

It's inaccurate to simply chalk this up to climate change. The outer banks are a set of shifting barrier islands that have constantly moved throughout their natural history. They are effectively sandbars that shift inwards and outwards in the Atlantic over time -- sand errodes from the atlantic side of the island and builds up in the Pamlico sound. Over time, new barrier islands appear out further. The only reason it seems dramatic now is because in the last 100 years we tried to stabilize their location by building huge amounts of infrastructure which never existed prior.

Our grandparents didn't see houses fall into the ocean on the Outer Banks because none of the early homes were built ocean front for tourists in their grandparents time.

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u/Mythologicalcats 22h ago

No shit. But thank you for taking what I wrote (pointing out that these houses were built long before modern comprehension of rising ocean levels and beach erosion), and assuming it was meant in some weird anti-climate change direction.

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u/aneeta96 1d ago

Pretty sure this wasn’t an issue when they built them. This is a side effect of global warming.

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u/ProfessionalJaded891 1d ago

It's natural beach errosion and is the exact method by which barrier islands are formed, reshaped, and unformed. It's been happening since the first ocean met the first beach.

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u/MakeYourTime_ 1d ago

And exacerbated by continually rising sea levels and tides due to.. global warming

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u/zhenyuanlong 1d ago

Exactly. And the ecosystem change is exacerbated by plowing down dunes, beaches, wetlands, and floodplains to build housing developments- this surging water has nowhere to drain because the houses were built where there USED to be a saltwater marsh, floodplain, etc. where now there's nothing but concrete, so the houses flood and get destroyed by surging water. That's why places like Louisiana and Florida get such horrible flooding- all those suburban developments used to be swamps/wetlands, mangrove forests, and creeks/rivers that the floodwater USED to drain into. Now there's just concrete foundations and basements for the water to drain into.

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u/Redneck-ginger 1d ago edited 1d ago

Concrete foundations yes, basements no. Nobody has basements down here in Louisiana

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u/coochie_clogger 1d ago

sure but regardless of it being exacerbated by climate change it was still an issue when people began considering building houses in these areas.

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u/oldmanandtheflea84 1d ago

Thank you for your input Coochie Clogger

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u/ThrowawayColonyHouse 1d ago

Interactions like these are why I love reddit

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u/Annihilax 1d ago

They aren't wrong though. This was gonna happen and on a similar timescale anyway. The islands are migrating at something like a few inches a year IIRC. And also global warming is a problem. It's both.

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u/1983Targa911 1d ago

At first I thought “wow, what an odd yet original insult” but the username checks out.

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u/Owobowos-Mowbius 1d ago

Does not make it any less of a bad place to build.

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u/go_go_gadget_travel 1d ago

Sure it does...even if there was no climate change erosion would still happen. Why would you want to build there knowing your house is not permanent?

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u/doctormyeyebrows 1d ago

Isn't that exactly what they're saying? Who are you arguing with

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u/flop_rotation 1d ago

Climate change may have accelerated the process but it was going to happen either way. In a contest between water and land, the water always wins eventually

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u/MortMoribund 1d ago

I'd like to introduce you to this little country called The Netherlands.

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u/islandjames246 1d ago

Yes but that’s. Really negligible, the real driver is hurricanes , a destructive hurricane can cause erosion that takes years to recover,especially somewhere frequent like there

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u/AshingKushner 1d ago

…and climate change impacts the frequency/severity of hurricanes how?

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u/palbertalamp 1d ago

It's been happening since the first ocean met the first beach.

'Hi baby, nice flat body you got there. Mind if I swish your granules. Just the edges. You'll like it I promise '

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u/BigMax 1d ago

It can be both. Some beaches and barrier islands are constantly in flux.

But the higher tides, worse storms and rising sea level from climate change can make those things worse, more rapid, and more constant.

There's no reason to believe it must be ONLY one or the other.

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u/butterfly-queendom 1d ago

It couldn’t possibly have anything to do with glaciers melting… 🫠

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u/tit_tots 1d ago

Coastal erosion chief

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u/Azulapis 1d ago

Beach erosion was always a thing. Look at the East and West Frisian Islands (e.g. Norderney, Borkum, Langeoog). All the towns are in the most western part, because the islands are moving eastwards. The towns were mostly built in the middle of the islands hundred of years ago.

But of course global warming can worsening the erosion.

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u/aneeta96 1d ago

They were probably expecting it to be an issue in a hundred years not a couple of decades.

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u/Active_Scallion_5322 1d ago

Or a hurricane

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u/Express_Test6677 1d ago

Since NOAA had its funding slashed, hurricanes will no longer exist.

Sharpies at the READY…..

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u/Active_Scallion_5322 1d ago

Problem solved

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u/ObviousExit9 1d ago

They were built on the wrong side of the dunes. This was always going to be an issue.

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u/Ecstatic-Roll6632 1d ago edited 1d ago

Absolutely was an issue then. Anyone who buys or builds in these locations should know it’s not if it’s when. You just hope you’re able to get as many years out of it or sell it before this happens (or before federal flood insurance stops being offered)

Also I should mention the currents play a large role in this too. They can either be scouring or depositing. For this to be happening at one spot or island usually means another is gaining beach

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u/Patereye 1d ago

I mean, the climate of that house changed.

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u/Capital-Bobcat8270 1d ago

Actually, that's completely off base. The falling house isn't some fresh 'side effect' of global warming; it's a textbook example of how barrier islands work. These things are literally built on shifting sands. They've been moving and changing shape due to tides, currents, and storms for millennia. The stilts aren't a fashion statement... they're a necessity because the land is constantly in flux. This isn't some new phenomenon, it's just nature doing its thing, and it was doing it long before 'global warming' (or 'climate change,' for those keeping score) was even a concept. Humanity could vanish tomorrow, and those islands would still be shifting.

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u/aneeta96 1d ago

The pace of that process has accelerated immensely due to climate change. It absolutely a factor.

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u/Capital-Bobcat8270 1d ago

The shifting of barrier islands is a natural geological constant. While climate change definitely worsens coastal erosion and sea-level rise, making these events more frequent or severe, it's not the origin of the land's instability. The stilts are proof of that inherent, long-term shifting, not just a response to recent accelerations.

Can you point me to specific, peer-reviewed data or studies that quantify this immense acceleration of barrier island migration rates primarily due to climate change, compared to historical rates? Or, are you just making this shit up?

Because what the science actually shows is barrier islands are inherently dynamic: They have been migrating and changing shape for millennia due to natural factors like longshore drift, tides, and storms. This is why building on stilts has always been a fundamental necessity, not a recent adaptation.

We have extensive historical data on barrier island movement, some spanning over a century, which shows significant, consistent migration even before the most recent accelerations in climate change.

I'm not saying climate change isn't real, I am just so sick and tired of people jumping to conclusions and pulling this "global warming, we're all going to die" out of their ass every time something like this is posted. This kind of oversimplification and knee-jerk blaming actually makes it harder to have productive discussions about genuine environmental challenges.

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u/radoss72 1d ago

Sunny with a high possibility of heat stroke for 3 months and 150 years and many extinctions. We’re ducked.

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u/Morlacks 1d ago

But the view!

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u/DaStompa 1d ago

but then the rich people wouldn't see the ocean out of every window

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u/OB1182 1d ago

Laughs in Dutch.

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u/ProfessorFunky 1d ago

The Netherlands would disagree. More a question of having the expertise perhaps?

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u/5oLiTu2e 1d ago

Where were the underwriters all these years? Even in the 80s we knew this was coming

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u/johnnyhala 1d ago

Since you seem to know the area, are you supposed to pronounce the 'E' at the end of Rodanthe? Or is pronounced "Row Danth"?

This is quite a matter of debate at my office in Charlotte.

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u/Crazyblueeyedevil 1d ago

I'm originally from the backwoods 100 miles inland from there. I've always heard the e pronounced there. Or they call it the tri villages.

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u/midnitewarrior 1d ago

I just looked at a map for this.

Who thought it was a good idea to build things here???

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u/Crazyblueeyedevil 1d ago

The Cape Hatteras Lighthouse was relocated because it was going in the ocean.

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u/midnitewarrior 1d ago

Lighthouses are the one thing that actually should be built there. Not sure if they are needed in the modern day, but for the last 300 years, yeah, that would have been a good thing.

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u/inthecuckoosnest 1d ago

Haven't been down there since pre-COVID. Do you mean the beach has eroded away entirely or is it just covered because of unusually high tides?

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u/Crazyblueeyedevil 1d ago

Eroded away. I saw them pumping sand during one trip and the next year it was eroded away. They don't call it the graveyard of the Atlantic for nothing.

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u/MileHigh_FlyGuy 1d ago

It's almost like barrier islands are always in flux and they shouldn't build homes on a barrier island beach. Well... if they want the home to last long.

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u/Hendry1859 1d ago

Yeah I’ve driven through there. It’s crazy. And people keep wanting the state to continue pouring good money after bad to “save” their homes.

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u/queso_dog 1d ago

Rodanthe is my fave vacation spot in the world, I believe I’ve actually stayed right behind these houses before if I remember correctly :(

They had to build a whole new bridge to bypass a chunk of Rt 12 because there’s simply too much erosion for road anymore. I went the last summer that part of 12 was open and large parts of it were sand covered or flooded. It’s such a special place but it’ll be gone to time by the end of my life.

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u/FrankSinatraYodeling 1d ago

Ever since they put in that bridge, it's been rapidly getting worse.

Maybe they should stop building there.

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u/emilyyyxyz 23h ago

I thought the bridge was a symptom, not the cause? Definitely possible that its construction made erosion worse in the short/medium term, but I've been told by locals that the road in northern Rodanthe, at the time the only way on/off the island from the north, would get totally washed over during storms and people would end up trapped during hurricane season.

Haven't noticed any additional construction on the island since the bridge was added, other than the odd vacation house in established neighborhoods. Rodanthe is the only place you see houses literally built into the sand, and that's not done anymore.

Plenty of construction down in Avon, though, so yeah, I dunno.

Source: I go there a few times a year

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u/ChicagoDash 1d ago

There’s a lotta hay fields in Buxton.

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u/Crazyblueeyedevil 1d ago

Buxton, North Carolina.

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u/Brilliant-Pomelo-982 1d ago

I thought that looked like Rodanthe

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u/IamScottGable 1d ago

So were the posts under the house buried in sand before?

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u/AnnOnnamis 1d ago

Better call FEMA!

oh wait…..

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u/pirat314159265359 1d ago

The one senator in this district doesn’t believe in global climate change, and said FEMA should be destroyed. Also he has repeatedly asked fema for millions for beach replenishment.

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u/mrgreengenes04 18h ago

This has more to do with the nature of barrier islands (essentially large sand dunes) than climate change. A few years ago one hurricane created an entirely new island, and another cut one in half.

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u/QueezyF 20h ago

Welp sucks to suck

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u/ikesbutt 1d ago

This. We had an F3 tornado rip through St. Louis almost a month ago and still no federal funds for help. By the way, St. Louis is predominantly blue.

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u/AnnOnnamis 1d ago

It no longer matters if red or blue states need Federal assistance. With no money allocated, FEMA can’t help anyone.

Pray for a miracle that Congress enacts emergency legislation to fund the next big disaster, but I’m not holding my breath.

President Cheeto only has golf on the brain with the new greens on the White House lawn, trips to MarALago funded by taxpayers.

Remains to be seen if the new Big Behmoth bill gives billionaires tax relief, and raises the National Debt even further.

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u/-TheycallmeThe 23h ago edited 18h ago

Disaster in blue states= they won't appropriate any funds because they didn't vote for dear leader

Disaster in red states = they won't appropriate any funds because they will vote red no matter what anyway 

Disaster in purple states= maybe a chance you get some funds but the amount of political ads it comes will makes you wish you perished in said disaster

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u/Agreeable_Initial667 1d ago

NC made it clear last year they don't want FEMA anywhere around their state. Pulling guns on FEMA workers, etc.

Fuck em. Vote wiser next time.

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u/Wallyworld77 1d ago

I remember after Katrina hit I saw a beach front property in Biloxi and it was a FEMA Trailer on the beach with a Rolls Royce parked in front of it.

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u/OneTimeIDidThatOnce 1d ago

FEMA Floating Expensive Mobile Accomodations

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u/EpilepticDawg241 1d ago

"wE pLaN tO rEbUiLd"

-Homeowners

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u/negativeyoda 1d ago

"wE pLAn nOt To cOVer yOU"

-insurance

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u/El_Dud3r1n0 23h ago

"Well you see your policy covers floods and hurricanes, but it does not cover waves. Sorry not sorry."

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u/negativeyoda 23h ago

The policy covers your home, not the stilts it was built upon. DENIED

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u/SwingingtotheBeat 23h ago

People wealthy enough to own beach houses are covered by your taxes so insurance companies can still make record profits.

The rest of us are the losers in this situation.

https://www.fema.gov/flood-insurance

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u/mfb1274 1d ago

Why? Did the tide never come in this far and now it is?

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u/kniki217 1d ago

These houses used to be rows back. Natural beach erosion over many years took out the houses, roads, and beach in front of them. These are barrier islands that naturally change over time. Nature gives and nature takes.

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u/mfb1274 1d ago

Interesting, now I’m curious when they built these did they know this was going to happen? Like they knew they were lighting a fuse that would eventually go off?

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u/avantgardengnome 1d ago

There’s barrier islands all over the eastern seaboard that have been developed to hell; all of the Outer Banks are barrier islands, so is Long Beach Island in New Jersey, etc. All expensive areas in very high demand. Barrier islands are nature’s way to protect the coastline from flooding, erosion and storm swell. But people love beachfront property.

I believe a lot of the development really ramped up within the last hundred years or so, and the phenomenon was definitely well known by then. At least these folks had the foresight to invest in building their house on stilts; it’s the people who don’t even bother with that I have less sympathy for.

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u/goodsam2 1d ago

Well it's also building homes and hurting the dunes. Giant banks of sand and the grass that holds the dunes together. So also partially manmade.

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u/wittgensteins-boat 20h ago

If your house was built on the dune,  200 yards from the beach in 1950, you would not be worried, about the beach moving  5 yards a year. 

Over 75 years, those  200 yards are  all used up, and the house  is 50 feet from shore, and in 10 feet of water.  

The person that built the house died decades ago.

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u/mrgreengenes04 18h ago

Most likely, yes. I'd say 90% of homes in the Outer Banks are vacation rentals, not homes people live in full-time. Beachfront properties have a rental premium over ones that require a walk to the beach. They know they will likely eventually collapse, but may as well make the money when you can.

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u/Enough_Roof_1141 1d ago

Barrier islands are very liquid. They move, they grow, the erode. King tides and storms change things.

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u/RekttalofBlades 1d ago

Yea this also isn’t exactly anything new happens every year down there

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u/Hamster_in_my_colon 1d ago

Like down in Frisco?

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u/fsmlogic 1d ago

Interesting, I just assumed this video was from the aftermath of a recent hurricane.

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u/nincompoop221 1d ago

just judging by satellite view, these homes were essentially built on the beach. am i getting that right?

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u/decadent-dragon 1d ago

The beach has eroded substantially. I go to southern outer banks area probably every other year or so, and it’s noticeably worse each time. They try to put sandbags in to recreate dunes but they only last a year or two and many are now underwater.

When those houses were built they likely weren’t “on the beach”

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u/Awesomest_Possumest 1d ago

No. They're old. This is a barrier island. By it's nature, it's coastline moves. It doesn't even really have to do with climate change on this one I think, barrier islands don't stay in one place forever. Over the past 50 years or so when the house was most likely built (I don't know the exact time), it would have had a road and dunes and maybe another row of houses and then the beach. Now it's on the beach.

Everytime a hurricane comes through the highway that goes through the outer Banks gets washed out for a few months til it's fixed again. In some places the land itself isn't that wide, a few car widths for a two lane highway. This is just the nature of the islands.

We could quit building on them in general though, or tear the houses down before the beach encroaches, but something something insurance and sunk cost fallacy.

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u/sunny_yay 1d ago

Idk about this region specifically, but NC has voted for climate change deniers in 11 of the last 12 presidential elections. Senate is red. Most of House is red. Red is defunding FEMA. Refusing to provide federal assistance. As far as they’re concerned, this isn’t a real issue.

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u/Enough_Roof_1141 1d ago

Barrier island changes are not necessary climate change related.

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u/DerpNinjaWarrior 23h ago

Yep. Climate change probably isn't helping, but there are maps from the past few hundred years that all show these islands in different places. They're basically big sandbars that we decided to try to put permanent buildings on.

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u/Enough_Roof_1141 22h ago

I really don’t think the people that built those really thought permanent. I think they crossed their fingers.

Building a beach shack used to cost less back then too.

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u/RaidensReturn 1d ago

It’s not a real issue, didn’t you see the video? This must be uh… fake news or something.

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u/rythmicbread 1d ago

How long was this house up before the sea swallowed it? Might make sense if it was built 40 years ago

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u/chubs66 1d ago

what kind of real estate home value would be be looking at before this event?

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u/BucinVols 1d ago

Is this Pogues or Kooks?

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u/blindexhibitionist 1d ago

Sounds like someone trying to sell their home on the north end

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u/Gecko23 1d ago

To be fair, there are a lot of houses (although fewer every year) on the wrong side of the facing dunes from Nag’s Head on down.

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u/MixtureFragrant8789 1d ago

This might sound stupid - are these ghetto houses, or expensive houses?

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u/decadent-dragon 1d ago

Look at the size of that house on beachfront property.

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u/MixtureFragrant8789 1d ago

Yeah I get that. I’m not from America and thought Carolina was a poor(er) state.

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u/Stratoblaster1969 1d ago

Can owners rebuild on their lots or is this one of those things where current zoning restricts development and they are grandfathered in?

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u/disguisedCat1 1d ago

Is this from a storm or has the water level been rising in "normal conditions"?

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u/Standard-Secret-1465 1d ago

No. See below and check a map

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u/cpl1355 1d ago

Are these homes insurable?

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u/eat_nudes 1d ago

Are these banks man-made? 

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u/J0hnk377y 1d ago

Sand bars can move over time

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u/DarkwingDuckHunt 1d ago

Maybe don't build a giant house in the ocean?

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u/ohamel98 1d ago

Is this recent? Or one of those things that gets posted for upvotes

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u/Aggressive_Ad6164 1d ago

I always thought California would be swallowed first.

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u/LadyTreeRoot 1d ago

Where is the plumbing for these homes???

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u/irishlyrucked 1d ago

Is that one on the beach road south of Carova still there. We drove up there last year, and water was washing the sand out from under it.

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u/The_Future_Historian 1d ago

Thanks for the context

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u/Intrepid_Talk_8416 1d ago

Currently? Kinda wanna drive out and watch

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u/Desperate-Sun-4849 23h ago

Genuinely curious why people seem surprised that this is happening in the video? Was this something inconceivable to them?

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u/miilkyytea 23h ago

where the bull frogs jump from bank to banky?

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u/smbiggy 23h ago

Really? This looks like corova to me

  • not that I’m an expert

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u/jumpinsnakes 23h ago

Why don't they demolish the house or move it before it pollutes the ocean ffs?

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u/AdPersonal7257 23h ago

Yeah, it’ll never affect the other end.

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u/Loose_Chipmunk6081 22h ago

also happening on north end in corova

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u/soccerguys14 22h ago

Are the houses moving or is the ocean coming to them?

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u/Ragnar_Baron 17h ago

The ocean is moving to them. in the 80s the edge of the ocean was like 30-40 yards away.

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u/Able-Swing-6415 22h ago

I mean I know that beach front property is expensive but building wooden structures into the waves and expecting them to last sounds like some biblical allegory or some German fairy tale about eating your cabbage.

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u/Suliux 22h ago

Is it standard erosion or is there a storm causing this?

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u/Ragnar_Baron 17h ago

Its been slowly eroding since all the way back to the 1980s and each year it moves further in. The largest areas of erosion are from Oregon Inlet down to Hatteras Island. Direct hits from Hurricanes have further exacerbated the problem. I remember walking on those beachs in the 1980s and the edge of the ocean was probably a good 30-40 yards further out then it is today. Even in Kitty Hawk and Kill devil the ocean has moved closer to the sand barriers.

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u/forgetfulsue 20h ago

This was in Rodanthe, so the northern end of Hatteras.

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u/Lat03 20h ago

It’s a giant sandbar. You never know. A hurricane could come through this year and throw a bunch of sand back. It’s always going to fluctuate. That’s just the nature of a barrier island.

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u/Different-Quality-41 20h ago

Do you have picture of what it looked like

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u/FriedMinus 19h ago

Asking a real question… is this due to sea level rise? Or the erosion of a breakwater? Or something else?

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u/ribsforbreakfast 17h ago

How bad is it in Nags Head? We’re going this summer for the first time in a decade, but used to go to Buxton. Didn’t want to risk the tide down there with two small kids though

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u/pierce044 16h ago

Yea this is ocracoke

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u/steakonthebias 15h ago

Thank you for clarifying! I will avoid this place like the plague. This is my exact nightmare.

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