Five more homes fall into ocean in Outer Banks as total rises to 16, rangers say
UPDATE: A fifth house fell into the waves on Oct. 28 on Tower Circle Road in Buxton around 4:30 p.m., according to the National Park Service.
The updated story continues below.
Waves battering the east coast of North Carolina have brought down four more houses in Buxton in the Outer Banks, according to the National Park Service.
The first home on Ocean Drive collapsed at 10:45 a.m. on Oct. 28, following closely by a home on Tower Circle Road at 11 a.m, a second home on Ocean Drive at 12:45 p.m. and a home on Cottage Avenue at 1 p.m, NPS said.
The latest collapses have brought the annual total to 16 homes lost, starting in September, according to NPS.
All but one of these homes have been from the Buxton neighborhood.
A video taken along Buxton’s coast show a bright blue house down in the water, its walls being broken down by each wave. The video was shared by Jennifer Koontz on Oct. 28.
Another video by Koontz shows debris floating in the water as it washed up under another home, and one house has a deck that breaks apart.
Officials said hazardous weather is expected in Buxton and neighboring Rodanthe for the first half of the week, threatening the oceanfront structures, according to an Oct. 27 Facebook post from the Cape Hatteras National Seashore.
“Two beach closures are in place because of dozens of threatened oceanfront structures that may break apart or collapse, releasing hazardous debris into the water and onto Seashore beaches,” park officials said. “The proximity of these damaged structures to Seashore lands poses a serious risk to visitors walking along the beach or wading in the surf.”
The first house to fall this year collapsed on Sept. 16 on Tower Circle Road in Buxton, followed by five homes on Sept. 30 and four more homes in the month of October, NPS said.
A total of 27 private homes have collapsed since 2020.
The cleanup effort continues to be impacted by the federal government shutdown, McClatchy News previously reported, as noted by an alert on the NPS webpage.
This story was originally published October 28, 2025 at 3:57 PM with the headline "Five more homes fall into ocean in Outer Banks as total rises to 16, rangers say."
