BUXTON, N.C. — Cleanup crews were hard at work demolishing and cleaning up an oceanfront home that collapsed Tuesday evening in Buxton.
“I hate comparing this to Rodanthe because it's much worse," said Brian Harris, a member of the Buxton Civic Association.
“It kind of shocked me, to be honest. I’ve never seen one fall in Buxton, only Rodanthe," said local Hunter Thomas.
This marks the 12th house on Hatteras Island to collapse since 2020, with eleven in Rodanthe and one now in Buxton.
“We all knew it was coming. We've been screaming about it for year and a half now," said Harris.
Brian Harris and the Buxton Civic Association have been pushing for change in the area for more than a year. Harris says with more than a dozen more houses threatened by the ocean, something needs to happen.
"The civic association wants a state of emergency for the Buxton oceanfront, the motels, the jetties, it all needs to be a state of emergency. This needs to go on [Governor Josh] Stein's desk. This needs to be dealt with. Everybody's over it," said Harris.
A positive is that there are plans in the works to reinforce the shoreline in 2026 — a rebuilding of the southernmost jetty and a beach nourishment project on top of it.
"It's great that we got the jetty coming in April. You know, we're looking at replacing one that Dare County's approved. We really need a system of jetties all the way to the motels. We've got the beach nourishment as well coming, but there needs to be some level of retreat in all this, too," said Harris.
But those projects are months away, and each day, all these houses remain threatened by Mother Nature.
“For us to just sit here and watch these houses drop over the next five months. It's just it's bad for everybody," said Harris.
