r/interestingasfuck • u/Endolithic • Jun 06 '25
Homes are falling into the ocean in North Carolina's Outer Banks /r/all
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u/stryker511 Jun 06 '25
The coast of N.Carolina changes much quicker than other coastlines due to the extremely strong current. There is a beach where I used to park next to a shipwrecked tanker from just 30 years earlier. Pirates would frequent this region because most ships wouldn't venture there. Great place to visit if you like nature.
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u/_perpetualparadox Jun 06 '25
Outer banks aka the graveyard of the Atlantic
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u/blueranger36 Jun 06 '25 edited Jun 07 '25
I have a map called the “graveyard of the outer banks” and it’s just locations of sunken ships
Edit: for everyone who asked, here is a cheap way to buy it: https://shop.americasnationalparks.org/products/ghost-fleet-of-the-outer-banks-map-poster
It’s call the ghost fleet of the outer banks.
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u/AgitatedSquirrell Jun 06 '25
We stayed in a house in Duck which had a map hanging on a wall with the location of all the shipwrecks.
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u/AToastedRavioli Jun 07 '25
Didn’t Blackbeard wreck the Queen Anne’s Revenge there?
Edit: didn’t know he ran it aground on purpose. TIL
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u/WallabyBubbly Jun 07 '25
It's not that well known, but the North Carolina coast has some of the best scuba diving in the US if you like shipwrecks. Their wrecks get a lot of sand tiger sharks too, which is a species of shark that is big and scary looking but also totally harmless (to humans at least).
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u/stubept Jun 07 '25
I mean, they literally moved an entire lighthouse nearly 3000 ft over 25 years ago because it was going to wash away.
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u/JJNotStrike Jun 07 '25
I grew up vacationing with my grandparents on the Outer Banks.
The construction process to move the lighthouse was absolutely fascinating to observe in person.
There's more info on the Relocation process on the Wiki if anyone is interested: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cape_Hatteras_Lighthouse
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u/atriaventrica Jun 06 '25
SELL THE HOUSES TO WHO, BEN?! FUCKING AQUAMAN?!
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u/bigb0inkus Jun 06 '25
What is this from again lol, it’s someone shitting on Ben Shapiro but I forget
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u/luvcartel Jun 06 '25
Ben was arguing climate change and rising sea levels don’t affect you because you can just sell your house and move. So somebody replied “sell the house to who Ben? Aquaman?!” Because it’s obviously insane to suggest you could sell a house that is currently or will be underwater
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u/bigdave41 Jun 06 '25
To be fair to Ben Shapiro, he doesn't have a lot of experience with wetness
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u/AerwynFlynn Jun 06 '25
I like to think that the conversation with his wife actually went
Ben: Babe, do you get wet when we have sex?
Wife: Not normally, no Ben (stares off into the distance)
Ben: HA! mY WiFE SaiD It’S NoT NoRmAl tO gEt wEt DuRiNg tHe SeX!!!
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u/Savings_Difficulty24 Jun 07 '25
Bold of you to assume he has sex with his wife
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u/allnaturalfigjam Jun 06 '25
Whenever I find myself getting angry with Ben I think about this and it makes me feel so much better
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u/e37d93eeb23335dc Jun 07 '25
Then I wonder if I should feel sorry for his wife, then I remember that she chose to be married to Ben Shapiro and this feels like karma.
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u/Every-Pea-6884 Jun 06 '25
So glad he’s still getting roasted for this - I try to insert this when I can but I always forget who the guy was. Idk how I could forget it’s Ben-fucking-Shapiro
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u/Samulady Jun 06 '25
That someone is HBomberman
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u/MalpracticeConcerns Jun 06 '25
HBomberguy*.
Or HBurgerguy depending on which channel you follow
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u/Samulady Jun 06 '25
Fuck I'm such a fake fan lmao. It's because of the damn bomberman games I swear
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u/toldya_fareducation Jun 06 '25
he only uploads once per decade so i don't blame you for forgetting his name
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u/Various_Opinion_900 Jun 06 '25
Never in my life have I called him anything but "Hbomberman" so I get you. Like, he shows up when I google that, so it might as well be his name
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u/DroidLord Jun 06 '25
I think Ben here was suggesting you sell it to some sucker before it gets too bad. The classic "I got mine" mentality. Let someone else be the loser - just as long as it isn't you. The end result is the same though - someone is getting stuck with a bad investment.
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u/DIABETORreddit Jun 06 '25
No Ben was just saying the usual bullshit to deflect the issue, devoid of logic or reasoning. He wasn’t trying to give advice or anything, he was banking on the people listening to him say “climate change isn’t real, and if it were real then it’s not a problem” to be too stupid to see the obvious flaws in his suggestion. You can’t take anything these people say in good faith because they’re literally just straight up lying and trying to manipulate people most/all of the time.
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u/MoraugKnower Jun 06 '25
The Atlantean housing market is in free fall, looking for some cheap investment property?
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u/Special_Context6663 Jun 06 '25
AmIOverreacting: Neighbor suddenly moved his house closer to mine. Should I call a land surveyor or lawyer?
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u/shichiaikan Jun 06 '25
Wait 30 minutes then check again.
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u/Blankaholics Jun 06 '25
You right. Neighbors moved down the street. False alarm
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u/RekttalofBlades Jun 06 '25
Cannot physically locate neighbors house anymore, should I be concerned?
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u/Blankaholics Jun 06 '25
Nah it's fine. They're moving across the Atlantic as we speak.
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u/Icy_Efficiency_444 Jun 06 '25
His house is now storming the beaches of Normandy
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u/presshamgang Jun 06 '25
Realtor: this house comes with an ocean.
Buyer: do you mean an Ocean Front view?
Realtor: ...
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u/Skandiaman Jun 06 '25
Simple boundary line adjustment should do it. Provided all parties are in agreement.
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u/thepress250 Jun 06 '25
Home for sale: Handy man’s dream. Very reasonable price. Has a newly installed salt water pool in basement.
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u/tigershrike Jun 06 '25
895K
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u/temporary62489 Jun 06 '25
"No low-balls; I know what I've got."
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u/davidjschloss Jun 06 '25
I think you mean lowballs unless you’re describing something besides prices?
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u/kelariy Jun 06 '25
Mandatory ball check before closing, if they’re too low, deal is off.
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u/GODLOVESALL32 Jun 06 '25
On market: 285 days
Price drop! (1.2k)
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u/Anton338 Jun 06 '25
15 bids, four of which are cash offers.
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u/valarpizzaeris Jun 06 '25
"I'm looking for something for my daughter. Good starter house"
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u/angrymoderate09 Jun 06 '25 edited Jun 07 '25
There's a fairly affordable house for sale in my neighborhood right now. Dude ended up in a police standoff on Christmas eve and set the house on fire and then shot himself. It's a really good price for my neighborhood :/ a couple of my friends are giving it a thought
Edit: here ya go!
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u/WilliamJamesMyers Jun 06 '25
it's a Christmas Miracle
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u/12108Ward Jun 06 '25
A Festivus miracle. It’s now time for the airing of grievances.
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u/Mevakel Jun 06 '25
According to Ben Shapiro, there will be many homes like this for sale as people sell them and move away.
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u/Ragnar_Baron Jun 06 '25
Predominantly on the South end of the Banks is where this is occurring.
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Jun 06 '25
Mostly Rodanthe and Buxton. No beach left.
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Jun 06 '25 edited Jun 06 '25
I worked at a motel in Buxton that even some high tides made the waves come surging between the units. I constantly had to shovel sand out of the walk and doorways afterwards. There was a beach renourishment but it didn't last long for the $25 million spent.
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u/aronenark Jun 06 '25
Its almost as though we shouldn’t be building towns in places that require constant remediation and millions of dollars just to keep above water.
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u/Global_Lifeguard_807 Jun 06 '25
We should be replacing the vegetation we remove that keeps the beaches from eroding.
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u/cadmious Jun 06 '25
Yep removing vegetation to build beach homes is never a good idea. All that scrub is a natural levie. Some beach towns do it right and protect grassy dunes and only let you build behind them
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u/lazercheesecake Jun 06 '25
"But if these ugly unkempt grassy dunes are there, I won't have a beach view from my living room"
And if you remove those dunes, you'll have a beach view INSIDE your living room.
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u/mostlybiguy69 Jun 06 '25
Those duned along the coast are actually from the 30s as a depression WPA project. Natural dunes are wide massive things that stretched acrss the islands and the scrub trees went to the tide line.
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u/Aqnqanad Jun 06 '25
not a lot of people know this, most of what has prevented this from happening earlier was civil works projects thatve since fallen into disrepair.
we’ve stopped caring about them for so long that people have forgotten that they’re even man made, insane.
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u/Goodgoditsgrowing Jun 06 '25
Solution: build on stilts BEHIND the grassy dunes so your view looks over them. Bonus: you’re already lifted when sea level rise takes out those dunes.
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u/robitussinlatte666 Jun 06 '25
Everywhere I lived in Florida banned even walking in those dunes. We really shouldn't be fucking with stuff like that.
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u/boostabubba Jun 06 '25
Thats how it was at every house we rented in Myrtle Beach. Had walkways over the dunes and signs everywhere to stay off the dunes.
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Jun 06 '25
You can barely even walk through them anyway. There’s a reason they put planks on the beach as a walkway.
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Jun 06 '25
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u/coolborder Jun 06 '25
Also, sea levels are rising. An inch higher sea level doesn't sound like much but that's all it takes for this sort of thing to happen when people build so close to the ocean. And since 1993 sea levels have risen nearly 4 inches according to NASA.
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u/onepostandbye Jun 06 '25 edited Jun 06 '25
One of the first major cases of the Supreme Court after Trump’s election was one that resulted in the reclassification of wetlands. All those areas where we protected the trees that retain soil along the southern coasts are fair game for drilling, development, general commercial use. The ecology of that region is fucked. You know how many species depend on mangroves for reproduction? Well, it’s enough that when you take all the trees out the food web collapses. That means the loss of millions of fish and shrimp, population drops that you can’t fix. Fishing in the gulf is fucked. Goodbye, thousands of American jobs and fishing boats. The weather is changing as part of it, enjoy the storms that roll deeper and deeper into the interiors. But something something liberal tears.
Edit: It’s cool that a bunch of people read this, but I’m an idiot. Please learn more from an actual smart person speaking intelligently on the issue. This is a story about the terrible decision of the Supreme Court in 2023 but also the decisions made by Trump’s EPA and the (weirdly evil and 97% civilian) US Army Corp of Engineers this March to reclassify waterways further to benefit businesses.
I should also say that the 2023 SCOTUS decision. Was made during Biden’s tenure, not Trump’s. Oops. But it was Trump who put those corporate rubber-stampers on the bench.
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u/Mythologicalcats Jun 06 '25
These are the houses my grandmother would stay in, and my father as a kid, and then me with my family as a kid (Not these exact houses but further down the beach). They are very old, as are the towns.
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u/AnnOnnamis Jun 06 '25
Better call FEMA!
oh wait…..
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u/pirat314159265359 Jun 06 '25
The one senator in this district doesn’t believe in global climate change, and said FEMA should be destroyed. Also he has repeatedly asked fema for millions for beach replenishment.
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u/mfb1274 Jun 06 '25
Why? Did the tide never come in this far and now it is?
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u/kniki217 Jun 06 '25
These houses used to be rows back. Natural beach erosion over many years took out the houses, roads, and beach in front of them. These are barrier islands that naturally change over time. Nature gives and nature takes.
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u/mfb1274 Jun 06 '25
Interesting, now I’m curious when they built these did they know this was going to happen? Like they knew they were lighting a fuse that would eventually go off?
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u/avantgardengnome Jun 06 '25
There’s barrier islands all over the eastern seaboard that have been developed to hell; all of the Outer Banks are barrier islands, so is Long Beach Island in New Jersey, etc. All expensive areas in very high demand. Barrier islands are nature’s way to protect the coastline from flooding, erosion and storm swell. But people love beachfront property.
I believe a lot of the development really ramped up within the last hundred years or so, and the phenomenon was definitely well known by then. At least these folks had the foresight to invest in building their house on stilts; it’s the people who don’t even bother with that I have less sympathy for.
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u/goodsam2 Jun 06 '25
Well it's also building homes and hurting the dunes. Giant banks of sand and the grass that holds the dunes together. So also partially manmade.
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u/RekttalofBlades Jun 06 '25
Yea this also isn’t exactly anything new happens every year down there
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u/Mayonnaise_Poptart Jun 06 '25
I was watching. I saw the whole thing. First it started falling over, then it fell over.
-Milhouse
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u/campionmusic51 Jun 06 '25 edited Jun 08 '25
it’s like the beginning of a children’s story. “late one night, when everyone was fast asleep, charlie’s house fell into the sea, and was swept far, far out beyond the shore and into the vast expanse of the ocean blue…”
EDIT: (next part)
charlie woke with a start and sat bolt upright in his bed. the curtains billowed languidly as a cool breeze wafted through the half-open window. at first, he thought his senses were playing tricks on him. “how is it i can feel the motion of the curtains in my body?” he pondered, confused. just then, harold, the family’s somewhat indolent british blue, hopped onto the window sill, looked out, and gave a constricted yelp of such consternation that it made charlie jump half out of his skin. the petrified cat scrabbled for purchase in a frenzied slashing of claws against the slick gloss of the sill, fell clumsily in a sort of awkward sideways roll, thudded heavily onto the floor, and, finally, finding the bedroom carpet a much more faithful medium for feline traction, bolted for the door. “what on earth is going on?” thought charlie, startled. he made a determined effort and gathered himself. pulling the covers back, he swung his feet out of bed, and, with great trepidation, began to make his way to the window. the curtain had blown across so as to temporarily obscure its view, and as it remained suspended for a couple of seconds, charlie braced himself for whatever calamity should meet his unready gaze. then, the curtain fell back: charlie gasped, and clutched at his mouth. “good gracious, harold! we’re at sea!”
EDIT 2: (i don’t know if anyone’s still reading! next part)
harold hadn’t heard him. he was having a very cat-shaped meltdown somewhere out in the rest of the house. meanwhile, charlie was in the midsts of his own panic. he ran to the side facing window to look out of that one. water. he ran out of his bedroom and to the landing window at the rear end of the hallway: water. he crossed into the upstairs study and sprinted to the right-facing window…water. he ran downstairs and opened the front door—good lord! there was the sea. at his doorstep. charlie hurriedly shut the door lest water begin gushing in. he turned round and faced the stairs, out of breath and panting, now ashen with fear. just then, the grandfather clock struck three. the thought flashed reflexively through his mind that he would be told off for being out of bed in the middle of the night, and in thinking it, he suddenly realised—his parents! how had he not thought of them till now? “mummy! daddy!” charlie scrambled upstairs, darted to their bedroom door, burst in and—no one! the bed was still made. empty. “mummy?” he muttered, starting to cry. “daddy?” he fell back against the wall and slumped to the floor. charlie began to weep. he’d never felt so alone. each new sway of the house to the mild rhythm of the sea made him cry harder than the last. but before despair could completely engulf him, he caught sight of a similarly distraught creature under the bed. it was harold. he turned and looked at charlie with the most doleful expression a cat can muster. charlie held out his arms and harold padded over to him. they curled up together in a sort cinnamon roll of sorrow, and fell asleep in a heap on the floor.
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u/Significant_Okra_349 Jun 06 '25
Please finish the story, about to sleep and this sound great as bed time story
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u/GoldenGalz Jun 06 '25
I mean……. I don’t want to be insensitive or anything buuuuuuuuuut…. When you build your house on sticks in one of the most corrosive elements known then this is a big possibility.
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u/tidder_mac Jun 06 '25
There’s entire towns all built like this on coastal Texas waters. Some are right along the coast, but some are 100s to 1,000s of feet inland. It’s so damn flat there that if there’s any storm surge, it could flood for miles inland.
It’s a really fun looking town with literally everything on stilts.
Would enjoy renting there, but definitely not buying lol
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u/RD_Life_Enthusiast Jun 06 '25 edited Jun 07 '25
I'm from that area, and it always baffled me that no one ever switched to concrete pillars. Like, you're holding up an entire structure on something that a) biodegrades, b) is flammable, c) is vulnerable to termites, and d) absorbs water.
EDIT: I didn't say I knew anything about residential/commercial construction or science when I said I was from there. "It always baffled me" because I didn't know that concrete is worse in saltwater and Venice is built on wooden posts is probably a good why it baffled me. Relax.
That being said, I LOVE me a good beach house vacation. Second/third story porch with coastal breezes and adult beverages? Yes, please, and thank you.
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u/maidenhair_fern Jun 06 '25
Now that you mention it, why aren't they built on concrete?
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u/Minimum-Attitude389 Jun 06 '25
Wood in salt water is excellent, especially in mud. It won't decay very quickly. Look at Venice.
Most concreted will erode very quickly in salt water.
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u/ryebread91 Jun 06 '25
Iirc it's not the fact it's in water but the fact it is submerged nearly 100% of the time instead of this constant wet dry cycle every day
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u/MigasEnsopado Jun 06 '25
This. The buildings of the Baixa district of Lisbon are also built on wooden stilts as that area was once water and the ground is muddy. The trick is maintaining the stilts permanently wet. If you let them dry and get wet again repeatedly, that's when you fuck up. This was a big consideration and source of worry when building the subway there.
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u/TheGrumpiestHydra Jun 06 '25
The initial cost is higher than wood. It's all about the money 💰
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u/ResearchNo5041 Jun 06 '25
Surely if you got the money to build on ocean front property you got the money to do it right??
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u/Conspicuous_Ruse Jun 06 '25
You choose Texas water front property when you really want water front but don't have money.
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u/SP3NGL3R Jun 06 '25 edited Jun 06 '25
No No. The builder went cheap (Capitalism), it's the sucker buyer that just shouldn't have bought it. But!!!! "Hey. This is the exact house as that one, just on wood instead of <literally anything else> but it's $100k less. Let's buy this one honey."
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u/cubgerish Jun 06 '25
Sand is still sand, no matter what's on top of it.
Concrete might do a little better, but if you take the houses shown here for instance, it's still going down.
At the end of the day, the bedrock just isn't there, and if you went deep enough to where it was, it's not worth it.
There's a reason you see the same thing literally all over the world in coastal places.
It's just way too expensive.
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u/Plaidfu Jun 06 '25
Wooden pilings are cheaper and easier to install than concrete or steel, especially in soft, sandy soils common near beaches.
In places with many smaller or seasonal homes, the budget often doesn’t justify concrete or steel foundations especially since they are often having to make repairs due to the situation - wood is much easier to replace and repair.
in more hurricane heavy and wealthier areas you will find more steel and concrete being used but usually its just not cost effective
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u/ManOfTheCommonwealth Jun 06 '25
You’re from that area and don’t realize none of the factors you mention are applicable? The pilings are so heavily treated that they a) degrade over centuries, not decades, b) are far less flammable than the structures built upon them, c) impervious to terminates relative to structures built upon them, and d) so what? The pilings absorb little water and the water that is absorbed is salt - minimizing the foregoing 3 factors.
To use concrete pillars would require excavation and shoring into soft wet sand to depths of 14 feet or more which is inherently dangerous. Once backfilled, the fill material does not compact back as well as removed reducing lateral stability. These wood pilings are driven (really hydro-driven now-a-days with a giant pressure washer rather than pile driver) negating excavation and backfilling and are quite stable - as much or more-so than concrete alternatives. In fact, the few concrete houses down there are usually still built on wood pilings ;)
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u/Heatedblanket1984 Jun 06 '25
You meant to tell me some random redditors didn’t just solve an entire industries problems with two comments?
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u/Electronic-Jaguar389 Jun 06 '25
“Cement! Why didn’t I think of that!”
Somebody with most likely decades of building knowledge.
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u/lord-dinglebury Jun 06 '25
I’ve always thought the same thing about the houses built on coastal cliffs. Didn’t these people learn about erosion in third grade like everyone else?
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u/They-Are-Out-There Jun 06 '25
If only someone could have warned them about building a house on the sand being a foolish thing to do…
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Jun 06 '25
I lived and vacationed on that barrier island for years. Originally, there was a lot more beach there. But, it's a barrier island that shifts. There has been beach renourish efforts, but 1 or 2 good storms will and has washed it away. .
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u/temporary62489 Jun 06 '25
beach renourish efforts
Just keep feeding the ocean more and more sand hoping that it eventually gets full?
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u/rabid_spidermonkey Jun 06 '25
It's worse than that. It's building jetties and relocating sand, both of which have been shown time and time again to speed up the migration of coastal barrier islands. So yeah you've got your summer beach back, but come winter that shit is gone again + interest.
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u/rekkeu Jun 06 '25
Probably dredging sand and dumping it on/close to shore. They do that to NJ beaches around where I am.
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u/bustersuessi Jun 06 '25
When there were 4 100 Year storms in 5 years, that's when we decided to sell our house
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u/ZantaraLost Jun 06 '25
These are more than likely 40 plus year old homes and once were QUITE a bit further back from the Ocean.
This is also a karma bot posting stuff from at least a year ago if not longer.
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u/Nacke Jun 06 '25
In sunday school they told us this story about a man that built his house on a sandy beach, and the other guy that built it up on solid stone ground. I am sure there was some kind of moral there.
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u/SomeGoddamnLetters Jun 06 '25
Silly place to build if you ask me
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u/curvebombr Jun 06 '25
And they've been doing it for soooo long. Before I moved away, we stayed at a beach front house my mother used to stay in as a child. It was 4 rows off the beach when she first stayed there.
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u/SacredGay Jun 06 '25
Reminds me of one of the best lines I've ever read:
"Climate change: horrible news for people with beachfront property, but great news for people with /almost/ beachfront property."
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u/suprasternaincognito Jun 06 '25
Stop building homes on barrier islands. It’s not that fucking hard.
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u/palmerry Jun 06 '25
Hmmmmm. There must be an old adage about this. Castles? No. Maybe forts. Forts built on... Hmmm. Grass? No that isn't it. Sand! Yeah. Forts built on sand will wash into the lake or whatever.
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u/nonamejd123 Jun 06 '25
Everyone said I was daft to build a castle on a swamp
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u/SuppleSuplicant Jun 06 '25
My mom visited family in New Jersey and had to call me to rant, "These people built multimillion dollar houses on a fucking sandbar!"
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u/Dur_Does Jun 06 '25
This is, at least,a 2 year old video
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u/SolidSnake1989 Jun 06 '25
This is a couple weeks ago the one is still standing!
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u/Vast-Ad4194 Jun 06 '25
I would never have looked at the damage here and thought it was caused by another house! 😂
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u/TinF0ilTopHat Jun 06 '25
Is that a person in the water??
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u/JazzlikeMushroom6819 Jun 06 '25
Was wondering the same thing, but it doesn't seem to move much when the big waves hit it.
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u/ytsejam6891 Jun 06 '25
Left wing: "This is what happens with global warming".
Right wing: "This is what happens with gay marriage".
Me: "Why would you build a house there"?
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u/vgiz Jun 06 '25
In my area, “there” use to be dry ground. But why bother refitting a house on stilts cause at that point you know it’s game over.
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u/theshoeshiner84 Jun 06 '25 edited Jun 06 '25
Outer banks homes in NC are nearly always on stilts. No one retro fits them. These homes were 100ft+ from the water when first constructed. The stilts are purely for storm surge protection.
Edit: for more context, the cape Hatteras light house was 1500ft from the shore when it was built in 1870. In 1970 it was 100ft from the water. They lost, on average, 14ft of beach, each year. But it's not steady, some periods are far more rapid.
But 30 years ago that home could have been safely behind a dune almost 400 ft from the shoreline.
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u/Miserable-Resort-977 Jun 06 '25
Not sure about this one but tons of coastal homes are built on stilts from the get-go to avoid flooding. I'd bet nobody has lived in this house for a while
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u/mccaro Jun 06 '25
Hi, AirBNB, I'd like to discuss the security deposit on my rental.
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u/DBDude Jun 06 '25
You build on the ocean, the ocean is eventually going to win unless you keep constantly shoring up your supports.
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u/LordFarrell Jun 06 '25
Is there any liability to the owners for littering/polluting?
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u/apesofthestate Jun 06 '25
If the owners choose to demo it before it falls, they have to pay for it. If it falls into the ocean due to “natural” causes, the taxpayers pay to clean it up. Thus, they let them rot.
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u/ImaJustYeetRightByYa Jun 06 '25 edited Jun 07 '25
For everyone politicizing this, marine scientist here.
I'm fairly certain this is from last year's storm season, when there were very strong onshore winds. The outer banks are a barrier island. The houses are built on stilts to prevent flooding during times like this, during storm surge. The houses aren't built on the water. Yes, the houses are built near the ocean, but really there isn't alot of space otherwise and the shore has changed considerably even in the last 20 years. The dunes have eroded, and the shoreline has creeped closer and closer to the dune line every year.
I believe we will live to see large portions of the outer banks become entirely inundated with water, and the problem is very much due to rising seas and increased storm occurrence and strength. Saying it's the homebuilder's fault is simply untrue and comes from a position of not understanding.
It's a complicated geological problem, not a political one. Try better.
Editing because a lot of politics/not politics discussion is happening. I made this comment because early comments to this post were mainly laughing at the stilts and being close to water without taking into consideration that the state of public sentiment, research, and conditions were at a different place when a lot of these structures were built. Yes, climate change is political. What I'm arguing here is that the drivers of the change we see in this post is due to climate change and its effects, not just building location and standards. And yes, those play a role too in not taking early science seriously but again, the driving force of change is the climate change itself. If conditions were stable, and coastal erosion was manageable/offset by deposition we wouldn't be having this conversation.
Edit 2: the amount of replies to this comment that start with "I mean,..." is crazy.
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u/black_cat_X2 Jun 06 '25
I mean, it sounds like the root cause of the things you're describing (rising seas, increased storm occurrence and strength) is climate change. Which is very much a politicized issue. Can't blame people for noticing that.
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u/sabes98 Jun 06 '25
Reminds me of Aunt Josephine's house in A Series of Unfortunate Events.