An unoccupied house collapsed Tuesday on the Cape Hatteras National Seashore — the third to tumble into the Atlantic Ocean near Rodanthe, North Carolina, since Friday.
The house collapsed at around 1 p.m., sending debris onto the sand and into the surf, national seashore officials said in a news release.
“And very quickly, it was just debris everywhere. You could hear the noise. It made a heck of a bang when it went down,” visitor and witness BJ McGuire told Hampton Roads, Virginia-area NBC News affiliate WAVY-TV.
Seashore officials have temporarily closed a stretch of the beach from G A Kohler Court in Rodanthe, where the three collapsed houses were located, to Wimble Shores North Court in Waves, North Carolina. The closed section includes Rodanthe’s beach access.
The unnamed owner of Tuesday’s collapsed house has hired a contractor to clean up the mess, which includes wood pieces with nails.
Officials recommend that people avoid swimming or surfing in front of Rodanthe, Waves and Salvo, North Carolina.
“The biggest concern is just cleaning everything up, you know? We get a lot of slack, all of these homeowners do, that they don’t care. These are money machines and that’s not the case. We lose sleep over littering the beach,” Paul Troy, whose family owned the first house to collapse Friday since 2008, told Raleigh-area ABC News affiliate WTVD-TV.
Five unoccupied houses have collapsed along the seashore in 2024, and 10 since 2020, according to the national seashore website.
Rising tides flooded previously dry sections of sand around the houses, and coastal erosion undermined their stability against inclement weather.
• Brad Matthews can be reached at bmatthews@washingtontimes.com.
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