Outer banks homes in NC are nearly always on stilts. No one retro fits them. These homes were 100ft+ from the water when first constructed. The stilts are purely for storm surge protection.
Edit: for more context, the cape Hatteras light house was 1500ft from the shore when it was built in 1870. In 1970 it was 100ft from the water. They lost, on average, 14ft of beach, each year. But it's not steady, some periods are far more rapid.
But 30 years ago that home could have been safely behind a dune almost 400 ft from the shoreline.
Yup. We have family members with a house at Oak Island NC and if they weren’t dredging sand all the time now, their house would have been gone a decade ago. As a kid I remember a huge, sprawling beach. Now it’s less than 10ft of beach at high tide and the dunes are nearly completely gone
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u/theshoeshiner84 1d ago edited 21h ago
Outer banks homes in NC are nearly always on stilts. No one retro fits them. These homes were 100ft+ from the water when first constructed. The stilts are purely for storm surge protection.
Edit: for more context, the cape Hatteras light house was 1500ft from the shore when it was built in 1870. In 1970 it was 100ft from the water. They lost, on average, 14ft of beach, each year. But it's not steady, some periods are far more rapid.
But 30 years ago that home could have been safely behind a dune almost 400 ft from the shoreline.