Residents and officials comment after house collapses near Rodanthe Pier – Queen City News

Madie MacDonald and Andy Fox

6 minutes ago

RODANTHE, N.C. (WAVY) — A home along Ocean Drive is the latest to collapse along North Carolina's Outer Banks, according to a press release from the National Park Service.

Authorities said a home just south of the Rodanthe Pier collapsed around 4 a.m., causing debris to be scattered throughout the area, some of which ended up in the ocean.

Debbie Roberts was nearby monitoring the situation. She was one of the first there.

“I actually took pictures and measured from the window of this house and measured to see how much the house was moving,” Roberts said. “And every day I would see it moving, and I know it was going to come in before I left, I just know it is…and sure enough, it did.”

The region is no stranger to sinkholes, as Western Carolina University professor Robert Young states that the region has one of the highest rates of erosion on the East Coast, sometimes up to 'at 15 feet per year.

“We’re lucky because conditions are calm today,” said David Hallac, superintendent of the Cape Hatteras National Seashore. “It makes the cleanup a little easier, but it will still take days and days, if not weeks, of cleanup to clean up the debris that is drifting north.”

A Charlotte family rents across the street and said they noticed the house seemed unstable the day before.

“We got here yesterday, saw it was leaning, and I said it didn't look very good,” Lauren Combs said. “When we woke up this morning the children came out and said the house was gone. We all went out and sure enough, he had fallen, he was in the water.

The collapse marks the sixth house collapse on Seashore beaches in the past four years.

Photos from WAVY 10 viewer Adam Bittmann show the collapsed house with debris surrounding the area.

Bittmann told 10 On Your Side that the woman next door heard creaks coming from the house around 4 a.m., followed by the sound of the collapse. Brittmann claims the wind of Monday's storms is the most likely reason for the collapse.

“There are a lot of questions,” Bittmann said. “Why aren’t the houses emptied? It's so bad that it looks like the house is going to collapse and who is responsible for drawing up the contracts to do so? It's hard to imagine how much waste comes from a house that collapses and scatters, it's one of the worst things.

While crews work to clean up the debris, an approximately one-mile section of the beach is closed, from Sea Haven Drive to South Shore Drive.

Late in the afternoon, the Cape Hatteras National Seashore announced a volunteer beach cleanup Wednesday morning, from 8 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. All interested parties are invited to meet at Rodanthe Pier.

Visitors are also advised to avoid beaches north of Sea Haven Drive in the southern portion of Pea Island National Wildlife Refuge due to the direction debris is expected to drift.

For more information about endangered seaside structures along the North Carolina coastline, visit the National Park Service website. here.