2 more beachfront homes near collapse as a hurricane waves pound North Carolina’s Outer Banks
Two houses in North Carolina external banks Sit unnecessary It seems to be numbered in high waves. Since 2020, 11 neighboring houses have fallen into the Atlantic Ocean.
Like the storms Hurricane Make things worse, there are always conditions that threaten houses – beach erosion and climate change sends closer and closer to the front gates of the ocean.
Two houses in Surf in Rodanthe drew attention as a few hundred miles (kilometers) east. About 200 people come out To Atlantic One of the other parts of North Carolina.
Jan Richards looked at the houses on Tuesday, because the high tide sent water fluctuations to support beams in two -storey houses. He pointed out where the other two houses were before the last collapse.
Richards, “He fell in the middle last year. He fell into the house. So you can see where he hit the house. But it was really flexible and probably continued until this storm,” he said.
The ocean has destroyed at least 11 houses since 2020
At least 11 Other House According to the National Park Service, which controls most of the external banks, I have entered a surfing in Rodanthe in the last five years.
Barrier islands like external banks It was never an ideal place for developmentAccording to experts. Islands typically form The waves accumulate sediment from the motherland. And they act according to weather conditions and other ocean forces. Some even disappear.
David Halllac, the director of Caperas National Seashore, said decades that houses and other buildings were smaller, less detailed and raped from surfing.
“Maybe the barrier island in the past was dynamic in the past, it was better understood that it was moving,” he said. “And if you have built something on the beach, it may not be there forever or you may need to be moved.”
The external banks had to carry the famous lighthouse even from the sea
Even the biggest structures are not immune. Twenty -six years ago, the most famous turning point, external banks, Cape Hatteras Lighthouse It had to be moved More than half miles (880 meters) in the interior.
When it was built in 1870, the Lighthouse was 457 meters (457 meters) from the ocean. Fifty years later, the Atlantic is 91 meters away. And erosion continues to come, some places throughout the foreign banks are losing 10 to 15 feet (3 to 4.5 meters) a year, Hallac said.
“And so every year, that white sandy beach went 10 to 15 feet,” he said. “And then the dunes and then the rear gambling area. And then suddenly, that area between low water and high water, right next to someone’s backyard. And then erosion continues.”
‘Like a toothpick in wet sand’
The ocean attacks the houses of wooden piles that provide the foundations and keep them on the water. Support can be 4.5 meters deep. However, surfing slowly takes the packaged sand around them.
Hallac said, like a toothpick in wet sand, even a beach umbrella, ”Hallac said. “The more deep you put, the more likely it is to resist and bending. But if you only reduce a few inches, this umbrella does not take much wind to bend.
A single house collapse can pour the rash of 25 kilometers (25 kilometers) along the shore, According to a report A group of federals who read the structures on the coast of the ocean in North Carolina, from the state and the local authority. Collapses can lead to potential contamination from septic tanks as well as other environmental concerns.
. report 750 of the structure on the coast of approximately 8,800 ocean in North Carolina said that 750 of them are at risk of erosion.
There are solutions but expensive
Among the possible solutions, it attracts sand scanned to the abrasive beaches, which is already something already done in outer banks and other communities on the eastern coast. However, it may cost 40 million dollars or more in Rotanthe and create a great financial difficulty for the small tax base.
Other ideas include buying, transporting or demolishing threatened properties. However, these options are also very expensive. And financing is limited.
Braxton Davis, General Manager of North Carolina Coastal Federation, a non -profit organization, said that the problem was not limited to Roanthe and even North Carolina. On the shores of California, he drew attention to erosion problems in large lakes and some nations rivers.
Buluş This is a national problem, Dav Davis said that sea levels have increased and “the situation will worse”.
