A 141-ton beach house crawled inland through Buxton’s receding beach as crews raced to pull another oceanfront property away from the surf before hurricane season begins.<\/p>\n
The seven-bedroom home is one of several structures being relocated along Old Lighthouse Road after a string of collapses transformed part of the Outer Banks shoreline into what coastal experts describe as one of the clearest examples of rapid coastal change on the East Coast.<\/p>\n
Since September 2025, 20 homes have collapsed in Buxton, where repeated storms erased dunes, exposed septic systems and left debris scattered across the beach.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis right here is probably the biggest, and it\u2019s definitely the heaviest house we have ever moved,\u201d said Barry Crum, owner of Crum Works Inc., which has spent recent months relocating and stabilizing threatened homes along the coast.<\/p>\n
The pace of erosion accelerated after a series of offshore storms battered the coastline last fall.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was like an odd year, even though they didn\u2019t hit land,\u201d Crum said. \u201cThere were some big hurricanes out there, and the swell angles were just concentrated in a way that had catastrophic consequences for us here on the island.\u201d<\/p>\n
Scientists say the destruction reflects both the naturally shifting nature of barrier islands and the growing pressures facing coastal communities as sea levels rise and erosion continues over decades.<\/p>\n
\u201cTo me, Buxton has become kind of a poster child of coastal change,\u201d said Reide Corbett, executive director of the Coastal Studies Institute.<\/p>\n
Corbett said many homeowners who built along the shoreline decades ago once had wide beaches and multiple dune lines separating them from the ocean.<\/p>\n
\u201cThose were all gone because of 10 to 15 feet per year on average of erosion over decades,\u201d Corbett said.<\/p>\n
Federal tide gauge data near Buxton shows that relative sea levels have risen about 8 inches over the past 30 years, allowing high tides and storm surge to push farther inland.<\/p>\n
For many property owners, relocation has become one of the few remaining options.<\/p>\n
Crews use hydraulic jacks and steel beams to slowly lift homes before rolling them inland on temporary rail systems or dollies. Timing depends heavily on tides and weather because waves can move beneath the structures during the process.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019re rolling the dice,\u201d Crum said. \u201cYou have to look for a tide schedule and weather window that allows you to go out there and work and not be inundated by the ocean.\u201d<\/p>\n
Some owners have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars relocating homes, while others have tried reinforcing foundations in place because they lack the money or land needed for a move.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey are between a rock and a hard place,\u201d Crum said.<\/p>\n
Dare County recently purchased and demolished one oceanfront home for $250,000 because it sat in the path of a planned protective dune line tied to an upcoming beach nourishment project.<\/p>\n
The latest version of Dare County\u2019s beach nourishment plan calls for roughly 2 million cubic yards of sand to be pumped onto about 2.9 miles of Buxton shoreline beginning in mid-June, weather permitting.<\/p>\n
County commissioners voted May 11 to expand the project beyond its originally planned scope after officials said they expect roughly $30.4 million in FEMA reimbursement tied to storm-related erosion damage. The larger project is expected to cost about $42.2 million in Buxton alone, according to county documents, with additional funding coming from local beach nourishment funds and county-approved financing.<\/p>\n
The work is part of a broader shoreline protection effort that also includes debris removal and repairs to a deteriorating groin near the former Cape Hatteras Lighthouse site.<\/p>\n
Coastal scientists warn beach nourishment is temporary.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou are not stopping the process,\u201d Corbett said. \u201cBeach nourishment is truly adding sand to the beach to provide a wide recreation beach with the understanding that it will erode away.\u201d<\/p>\n
The previous major nourishment project in Buxton was completed in 2022 and was expected to last about five years. County officials now say the shoreline eroded back to vulnerable conditions in less than three.<\/p>\n
Corbett said the difficult questions now facing Buxton will likely spread to other coastal communities in the coming decades.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe will not stop shoreline erosion,\u201d Corbett said. \u201cSo that\u2019s where we need to figure out how to manage it as best as we can.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A 141-ton beach house crawled inland through Buxton’s receding beach as crews raced to pull another oceanfront property…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":651306,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[47],"tags":[4253,192,62767,79],"class_list":["post-651305","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-environment","tag-climate-change","tag-environment","tag-outer-banks","tag-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/651305","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=651305"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/651305\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/651306"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=651305"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=651305"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=651305"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}