Powerful noreaster pounds dozens of vulnerable shore homes in North Carolinas Outer Banks with 100 more at risk

An early-season nor’easter is pounding a stretch of North Carolina’s Outer Banks where dozens of homes are already threatened by the advancing ocean — and officials warn the next row may not be far behindOn Thursday, Cape Hatteras National Seashore closed the beach from the northern edge of Rodanthe to the town’s pier because “multiple threatened oceanfront structures pose risks to public safety,” according to the National Park Service.For locals, it’s an all-too-familiar scene.Since 2020, 32 homes have collapsed, as erosion has steadily redrawn the shoreline.The losses have been concentrated around Rodanthe and Buxton, two small villages on Hatteras Island, one of the narrow barrier islands that make up the Outer Banks.At a state meeting last November, officials said they were tracking 100 threatened structures in the two towns, and warned more could follow.“If every one of those structures falls in,” Cape Hatteras National Seashore Superintendent Dave Hallac said, “there would be another 100 right behind them.”Already, at least five more homes have collapsed since Hallac’s warning, according to NPS records.

And the latest storm is putting the remaining threatened properties through another round of punishment.On Thursday, extreme tides broke through protective dunes on Pea Island, just north of Rodanthe, damaging roughly 500 feet of pavement and forcing the closure of N.C.12.

The National Weather Service warned of breaking waves peaking at 10 to 15 feet through Saturday evening.The pounding surf is hitting a coastline that looks radically different from when many of its beachfront homes were built.Michael McDaniel bought his Buxton beach house for about $500,000 in 2011, when roughly 250 feet—nearly the length of a football field—of dune separated its front porch from the Atlantic.But in the 15 years since, erosion has erased that buffer and left his home uninhabitable.That retreat is not unique to McDaniel’s property.The Outer Ban...