Falling Like Dominoes

In October of 2025, the town of Buxton, NC, on the Outer Banks, was in the national news. It is a place best known for its beautiful beaches and summer visitors. But within the span of a single month, 16 oceanside houses collapsed into the Atlantic Ocean; in just one 45-minute period on October 28, 2025, 5 houses collapsed. This brought the total number of collapses in Buxton and Rodanthe, NC to more than 26 since 2020. These fallen houses scattered debris on the beaches, and the ocean currents also carried it to other areas.

The fall 2025 collapses were mostly due to a confluence of events: Hurricanes Imelda and Humberto, rare pair of hurricanes that churned through the Atlantic in late September. The hurricanes remained largely offshore but still generated strong gusty winds, rain, and dangerous surf. These storms accelerated a natural process that the Outer Banks had always experienced.

The Outer Banks of North Carolina are barrier islands, formed by the action of tides, waves, and shifting sand. Waves and wind are constantly moving sediment around and rearranging the features of these narrow sandy islands. They are meant to naturally grow in some areas and erode in others, and the islands gradually shift westward. Severe storms can remove sediment from one side of the island and deposit it on the other, which is a process called overwash. The side of a barrier island that faces the mainland has waterfront on a lagoon or sound, and is more protected from the effects of ocean waves and sand, although still subject to winds and flooding.

As a result of these natural changes that take place on Cape Hatteras Island, an oceanside house that was built on the beach in the 70s or 80s, well away from the surf line, could now be surrounded by water. These houses are also built on tall pilings sunk into the sand, which renders them more unstable. These are the types of houses that have been falling into the ocean at an alarming rate in Buxton and Rodanthe.

Our Ecohavens rental properties are located on Pamlico Sound, on the mainland-facing side of the island, and are more protected from the effects of severe storms, wind, and the rising sea level. Buildings are not collapsing here as they are in Buxton. But the inherent fragility of any barrier island, especially with climate change bringing more severe and frequent storms and rising seas, should merit serious discussions about future construction and development in the Outer Banks.