Substack — The story behind an Outer Banks house that collapsed into the ocean
The house, post collapse (Photo by Don Bowers/Courtesy Island Free Press)
May 12, 2022
By Jeremy Markovich — Who owned it? Why didn't anybody move it or tear it down? Why is it there? And who has to clean it up? We've teamed up with the Island Free Press to answer questions big and small about a viral video.
I have seen the aftermath of houses that have collapsed into the ocean on the Outer Banks. I have never actually seen video of, you know, the collapsing part.
This house in Rodanthe fell into the water on Tuesday during a fairly strong nor’easter. A photographer who was there, Don Bowers, said the house basically dissolved just four minutes after it collapsed, leaving only the top level visible amidst a swirl of debris.
This was actually the second house to collapse on the same street IN LESS THAN 24 HOURS, and the third house to fall into the ocean on Ocean Drive this year. “This was not a surprise,” says Joy Crist, the editor of the Island Free Press, as evidenced by the crowd that showed up to watch it fall. Crist, who’s a longtime resident of the Outer Banks, talked to me this week to help me explain the bigger story behind this and other collapses. “It’s… messy,” she says.
First up, where did the house… go?
All over the place, really. The ocean current in that area flows south, so debris is spreading down toward Waves and Salvo.
Tiny bits of house move pretty quickly in the ocean. “Within 48 hours of that February home collapse, I was walking on the beach, and I saw debris from that house in Buxton, which is about 20 miles away,” Crist says.
So who has to clean it up? Well, since the beach there is part of the Cape Hatteras National Seashore, the National Park Service does it with an assist from volunteers (no kids, since they don’t want children stepping on nails). But the cleanup is also on the homeowner. Many end up hiring contractors or paying the NPS to go out and pick up what’s left of their house along miles and miles of beach.
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