COROLLA, N.C. — What's left of dune fencing, stairs to houses now 20 feet high above the natural dune, sistered pilings, poles and walkways that once led to the beach are all on display. That's the reality of an approximately 1-mile stretch from the four-wheel-drive beach horse fence to Corolla Village Road.
"We showed you one house in particular today, and we found another that I wasn't tracking until today, but they're very close to going in the water right now," said Tony Cerri, a Corolla resident and member of the Corolla Civic Association.
News 3 introduced you to Cerri in September of last year as Corolla residents shared their concerns about rapid erosion in this stretch of beach — a stretch that gets battered even with the smallest storm off the coast.
"We're currently at dead low tide, no moon, a windless day, but you can see the wet sand, how close it came to that house last night at high tide," said Cerri.
Cerri feels for current homeowners on the shoreline, noting they don't have many options when it comes to protecting their homes. Most of those options include planting dune fences and vegetation — which Currituck County has a reimbursement program for — or paying out of pocket to push sand onto the shore to reinforce the dunes in front of their property.
"The house in the background had a complete dune push in front of it in January. But the February storm came through and took it all away, it was not a strong storm. So what does the owner do? Does he spend more money to try and put it back up? Does he go into hurricane season unprotected? I don't know. It's a choice I'm glad I don't have to make," said Cerri.
Currituck County leaders were briefed on an ongoing shoreline assessment and a separate beach management plan earlier this month. The assessment shows the stretch these residents are worried about is the most vulnerable right now.
"The study that they just were briefed on confirms what we've been saying for about the last decade, and truly in the last five years, that this one mile from the horse fence to lighthouse, is the worst part of the erosion in our area. One of the things that they had in there is four feet of beach loss per year, and that's a lot of loss," said Cerri.
Upon reviewing the beach management plan update, Currituck County officials said in a press release that current options — including sand fence installation, dune vegetation planting, beach bulldozing, beach nourishment and relocation of threatened structures — are all being evaluated.
In the coming months, more details about the county's direction are expected, but residents like Cerri feel a plan of action needs to be made sooner rather than later.
"Depending on which option they use, and it could be we do nothing, it can be managed retreat, it could be truck sand, nourishment, whatever. Most of those are going to take two years to get the approvals and get in the position to do it, especially nourishment. So you're a homeowner, or you're somebody on this beach, this one mile, what do you do? You can't do nothing, or your house is going to be in the water. Don't know what the answers are going to be, but we need a decision, we need actions quickly," said Cerri.
News 3 reached out to Currituck County leaders with questions for this story but did not hear back before it aired. News 3 will update this article with the county's responses if they are provided.
