Drone Footage Shows Houses Washing Into Ocean at Popular Beach

Several houses in a North Carolina beachfront community are in jeopardy of being washed into the ocean, amid rapid beach erosion that has already claimed more than a half dozen homes in the past few years. And drone footage taken recently shows just how precarious the situation is.

The video, captured by WRAL 5 News last week, shows a string of what once were beachfront homes in Rodanthe, NC, all now sitting squarely in the ocean. But that wasn't always the case. The homes are located in the popular tourist destination of the Outer Banks, a string of barrier islands that splits off the coast of North Carolina and southeastern Virginia, that were once hot property.

The footage shows a deck of one of the homes starting to collapse, with septic systems beginning to crack open, spilling sewage into the ocean. The houses were once situated in front of a street that is now nothing but a pile of sand. And according to a National Park Service spokesperson, seven homes have eroded into the water in the past four years alone.

One of the homeowners, Sharon Troy, told the local news outlet that she and her family had owned their home in Rodanthe for 16 years, back when there was "a football field of beach" behind the houses.

"So many people say hateful things [and] ask why we built our house in the middle of the ocean. It was not like this when we bought it," Troy explained. "It wasn’t like this just a few years ago. And, we aren’t rich people. We are hard-working normal people. We can’t afford to move it. There is nowhere to move it. The insurance company won’t pay out until it falls over."

"It's incredibly sad. All we can do is hope and pray," Troy added.

When Troy's home eventually collapses, park officials and contractors worry that it could cause a domino effect. Already, the beach has become littered with planks of wood and rusty nails.

Cape Hatteras National Seashore Superintendent Dave Hallac noted that climate change is accelerating the natural erosion rates of the barrier islands. As time goes on, more and more houses will face the same fate.

"It’s a really unfortunate situation because that debris can scatter long distances across the seashore," Hallac explained. "When you add a foot of water or two feet of water, that just makes everything worse."