Outer Banks house marks the 8th to collapse into the ocean since 2020
RODANTHE, N.C. (WTVD) -- Cleanup is underway after another Outer Banks home collapsed into the ocean Friday morning.
It happened at Ga Kohler Court in Rodanthe. So far, the ocean has taken eight Outer Banks homes since 2020, but two in just the last six weeks.
"The biggest concern is just cleaning everything up, you know?" Paul Troy, the homeowner of the collapsed house, said. "We get a lot of slack, all of these homeowners do that they don't care. These are money machines and that's not the case. We lose sleep over littering the beach."
Troy and his family have owned this home since 2008 and hoped to move it before the collapse.
"At the beginning of the summer, we lost 13 vertical feet. We lost the staircase. We lost part of the septic system," he said. "We chose not to rent it out the rest of the summer because we were going to wait and see what the beach did, see if it came back."
The issue of what to do with the structure is complex. At this point, it's not clear what the solution is and that's from all parties involved.
Troy believes that homeowners are getting the short end of the stick, even when they are doing their best to prevent it from happening.
"Our biggest concern was stopping what's happening right now from stopping, and we get nothing but hurdles thrown at us. I don't blame just Dare County, I blame the insurance companies too," he said.
Local, federal, and state stakeholders have released a report of short- and long-term solutions. This includes offering more assistance to people to tear down their homes before they collapse into the ocean.
The house is the second in about the past month to be claimed by the Atlantic. Another home nearby sustained damage due to the collapse.
CNN contributed to this report.
