Just got back from the Outer Banks and the beach erosion there is terrifying

I was down in Nags Head last week and walked out to the pier like I always do. The dunes have lost at least 30 feet of sand since my visit two years ago. There are houses sitting on stilts that now have waves crashing right under them at high tide. What is the actual plan here because it feels like the ocean is just taking the whole coastline back.

3 comments

3 Comments

shane_fisher376d ago

That phrase "houses on stilts with waves crashing right under them" really sticks with me because that's exactly what I saw down in Hatteras last fall. I was just trying to find a good spot to fish off the beach and I literally stepped off a dune into a soft spot that almost swallowed my leg. My buddy who lives down there said some of those houses have been moved three times already and the insurance companies are just straight up refusing new policies. It's wild to think we spend all this money to build right on the edge of something that clearly doesn't want us there.

wells.karen6d ago

You know my dumb butt would probably be the one to buy a house like that and then act SURPRISED when the ocean comes knocking during a storm. Like "oh no, the thing I built directly in the path of has decided to visit my living room, how unexpected." I swear I saw a TikTok last week of a guy in Nags Head filming from his deck and the water was literally lapping at his floorboards underneath him. And he was just standing there like it was totally normal. The denial is STRONG with us humans, myself included. I once spent three hours building a sandcastle five feet from the tide line and then got genuinely mad when the waves wrecked it, so I get it. We really do keep doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.

the_eric5d ago

Start taking bets on how many of those stilts are still standing after the next Cat 3 rolls through. The ocean doesn't care about your down payment.