Houses at G A Kohler Court in Rodanthe, North Carolina.Photo: Cape Hatteras National Seashore // Flickr
Another Outer Banks house has collapsed into the ocean, making this the third in one week. As CBS 17 reports, the collapse occurred on G.A. Kohler Court in Rodanthe, North Carolina, the same site where, earlier this week, two houses collapsed in the same day.
The collapse happened Monday around 1:05 p.m. at 23039 G A Kohler Court. According to WTKR, the falling structure almost took down the house next to it in the process. This was similar to what happened Friday, when the house at 23001 G A Kohler collapsed into the ocean, damaging another unoccupied house in the process. Soon after, the second house, located at 23009 G A Kohler Court, also collapsed. In the aftermath, debris associated with the collapses was observed at least 20 miles south of the sites.
This is the latest in a series of house collapses on Outer Banks beaches. In the past four years, ten structures have fallen, five of them in 2024 alone. The issue stems from beachfront erosion due to increasingly intense storms and higher sea levels, all driven by anthropogenic climate change. “The effects of erosion in these villages have resulted in structures being present on the open beachfront or in the intertidal area,” explained the National Parks Service in a statement, “which may result in reduced beach access and safety for visitors, a loss of habitat for shorebirds and sea turtles, and, sometimes, structure collapses on Seashore beaches, resulting in many miles of beach debris.”
