A house at Rodanthe near Cape Hatteras National Seashore was claimed by the Atlantic Ocean on Wednesday/NPS
A house at Cape Hatteras National Seashore claimed by the ocean early Wednesday sent a debris field more than 7 miles down the beach, prompting a warning to seashore visitors while officials worked on a plan to remove the structure.
The house, with not quite 2,000 square feet of living space, was not occupied when it collapsed sometime before 7 a.m. EST Wednesday, said Cape Hatteras Superintendent Dave Hallec.
"I'm not completely surprised. I'm surprised we weren't aware of the condition of the house before it collapsed, but if you were to walk on the beach in this area, you would see that many of these homes on a regular basis have their pilings, essentially, in the water, often at high tide, but even in some cases at low tide," the superintendent said during a phone call. "So, to say that they're a stone's throw from the ocean, actually, is an exaggeration. They're closer than that."
From this angle you can see the precarious nature of other houses along the beach/NPS
The bulk of the debris is at the site of the collapsed house, located at 24183 Ocean Drive, Rodanthe, the seashore said in a release. However, smaller amounts of debris have been spotted as far south as off-road vehicle ramp 23, more than seven miles away, it added.
"What we're dealing with now is a very large debris field. There's a lot of debris right at the sight of the collapse on seashore property, and then we're not dealing with very rough seas, but a little bit of a north wind and a north swell, which has caused a transport of a lot of debris associated with collapse down the beach," Hallec said.
The collapse was just the latest calamity at the national seashore in recent weeks. Between January 25 and February 3 three vessels wound up grounded on the seashore's beaches.
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