The Heartbreak of Building on Sand

By Shanieka Smith 

Features Writer

#USA, May 14, 2022 – For the third time this year, beach houses have collapsed into the surf; the National Park Service in the US confirmed yesterday that two additional houses have fallen and warned that more houses may tumble.  The unoccupied houses fell into the waves along North Carolina’s Coast, close to Ocean Drive in the Outer Banks of the Rodanthe Community.

A report from WFAE 90.7 shared a statement from David Hallac, the superintendent of National Parks of Eastern North Carolina, who said, “We proactively reached out to homeowners along Ocean Drive in Rodanthe after the first house collapse and recommended that actions be taken to prevent collapse and impacts to Cape Hatteras National Seashore.”

Several experts have also shared that hundreds of the expensive vacation homes have been built in places where they should not have been built.  North Carolina’s coast comprises majorly narrow, low-lying barrier islands that are susceptible to storm surges.  Officials advised that development does not help but it increases the risks and dangers of falling houses.

Clean-up activities are being arranged as the debris from the houses are spreading, just like the house that fell in February; the debris spreaded across many miles of beaches.