The Outer Banks' Collapsing House Problem

Comments · 1.1K

• LI

  @lisaschuster686 · 1 year ago

  As the Dutch say, “The water always wins.”

  464

• WT

  @WTHenry2023 · 1 year ago (edited)

  It's folly to build on a sandbar, a greater folly to insure houses built on a sandbar.

  389

• MC

  @mchapman1928 · 1 year ago

  Just because you can, doesn’t mean you should.

  442

• AY

  @ayebing · 1 year ago

  “The House built on sand” is one of the worlds oldest parables for a reason, they knew 2000 years ago it was a bad idea lol

  395

• DA

  @danh6746 · 1 year ago

  My personal frustration with this is that it is a cyclical problem funded through the general population's taxes and insurance premiums that benefits only a small population. These areas are constantly rebuilt using massive amounts of tax dollars and insurance funds - raising the premiums for everyone and funneling a larger amount of taxes to a very small, and already wealth, group of people.

  890

• JM

  @JMBdevotee · 1 year ago

  Love the outer banks.  Been going down there for 30 years.  But it is nothing but a large sandbar.  It’s not if your home is at risk, it’s when.  The area has been known for shifting sands for hundreds of years, evident by all the ship wrecks. Tax payers should not be on the hook for individuals who build their house on the beach, even if it was considered a “safe distance” when it was built.

  132

• SO

  @southerner66 · 1 year ago

  In the old days, people built houses on the mainland side of NC&apos;s sounds. Some of them have been there since the 1700s. People built cheap cottages out on the banks because they all knew they could be destroyed by hurricanes or changing currents. But then, people got stupid and started wanting to build expensive luxury homes on what&apos;s ultimately nothing but a big sandbar. <br><br>You&apos;re never going to win a fight with the ocean in the Graveyard of the Atlantic.

  35

• FR

  @FrankChibu · 1 year ago

  this is not a problem, it is nature

  26

• FI

  @fighter5583 · 1 year ago

  All of this can be avoided if people just stop building houses on beaches. A rock bed is much more stable than a sand bar.

  22

• JE

  @jennoq1311 · 1 year ago

  Well, I think we know eventually nature is going to win this battle no matter how much money is thrown at it.

  78

• TR

  @trevorn9381 · 1 year ago (edited)

  Back when I was a kid in the 1970s most houses down there were small 2-3 bedroom beach boxes furnished with crate furniture or secondhand stuff from yard sales or thrift stores. &nbsp; If the whole thing washed or blew away in a hurricane the owner might have been out ten thousand bucks. &nbsp;Sometime towards the end of the 80s the dumpy little beach boxes started getting replaced by million dollar beachfront McMansions with 6-7 bedrooms, jacuzzi hot tubs and swimming pools. &nbsp; &nbsp;I never saw the point. &nbsp;If you are going to swim in a swimming pool or sit in a jacuzzi hot tub why go to the beach?<br><br>In any case the beachfront towns on the Outer banks of NC will eventually suffer the same fate as Cobb Island, Wash Woods and Broadwater, Virginia. &nbsp;Those towns were once playgrounds for multi-millionaires from the Northeast back in the late 19th century. &nbsp;The former site of the resort at Broadwater where President Grover Cleveland once vacationed is now nearly a mile out to sea.

  184

• LA

  @lanierosenberg · 1 year ago

  Barrier islands are NOT permanent geologic structures. Building on them will always be temporary. I don&apos;t care about the people who build there and loose their house. I care about the pollution when the building debris ends up in the ocean.

  98