Speechless, heartbroken, frustrated. Those are the words of the Buxton Civic Association after six Outer Banks beach houses tumbled into the Atlantic Ocean on Tuesday, five of them within 45 minutes.
The unoccupied older cottages in Buxton, all built between 1970 and 1998 – safely away from the beachfront at the time — fell as offshore hurricanes Humberto and Imelda churned up large waves and surf beginning Tuesday afternoon. A sixth house fell about 11 p.m., the National Park Service said.
Three of the houses were on Cottage Avenue and three on Tower Circle. They were owned by residents of Atlantic Beach, Duck, Chester, Chesapeake and Maryland, according to Dare County tax records.
Al Adam, past president and current board member at the N.C. Beach Buggy Association, a group that advocates for open beach access across the state, called the destruction the result of neglect.
“Call it foot-dragging, bureaucratic obstacles, failure to maintain infrastructure if you wish,” Adam said. “Say a bunch of rich people lost their write-offs. I say that working folks lost their dream and some their retirement plan.”
Federal, state and local officials have struggled to find solutions for decades as the Atlantic has slowly began to reclaim parts of Hatteras Island for decades. Since 2020, however, beach erosion has accelerated rapidly in both Rodanthe and Buxton, and 18 houses in total have fallen.
Meanwhile, residents, businesses and property owners in Buxton have been sounding the alarm about the deteriorating state of the oceanfront near the famed Cape Hatteras Lighthouse and N.C. 12, the island’s only thoroughfare.
In 2023, storms uncovered dangerous military debris and petroleum contamination at a former U.S. Navy site on the beachfront near the lighthouse, leading to years of beach closures and cleanup efforts by the Army Corps of Engineers.
Three jetties in Buxton, built by the Navy in 1970 to protect its military facilities, are now too deteriorated to provide protection, with coastal storms and even higher-than-average high tides regularly flooding the oceanfront and N.C. 12 with overwash.
Residents have argued for the jetties to be rebuilt, accompanied by beach nourishment, in an effort to buy some time But North Carolina’s Coastal Area Management Act bans most hardened structures along the state’s shorelines, and only allows repair or rebuilding if more than 50% jetty remains.
Members of the civic association have been campaigning state lawmakers to have at least one of the jetties rebuilt.
“Note how the groins helped retain the sand and how quickly the beach disappeared as the groins were allowed to deteriorate,” Adam said. “The government was allowed to protect their facilities but N.C. state laws have since made it near impossible to subsequently protect the public beaches.”
Owners of vulnerable beachfront properties have been stymied by bureaucracy as well. Insurance won’t pay out until a house falls into the ocean, while costs and regulations involved make moving threatened homes nearly impossible.
“Finger pointing, indecision, lack of funding, neglect of responsibility, or all of those things, the people and agencies that allowed this to happen are not those you would want to have your back in a brawl,” Adam said. “The Army Corp of Engineers, the state and the fed need to step up. The Dare County funding needs to be cut loose now. Help us save Hatteras and Ocracoke. We send billions of dollars around the world, can’t we protect this gem?”
The Outer Banks remains under wind, coastal flood and high surf advisories through this evening, with several homes one row back from the oceanfront in Buxton now threatened, too, Adam said. The National Park Service has closed the entire beachfront from northern Buxton through off-road vehicle ramp 43, for public safety.
“Speechless, heartbroken, frustrated,” the Buxton Civic Association said in a Tuesday evening social media post. “The worst possible happened. Two more days. Four more tides.”
