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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66.1k Upvotes

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658

u/SomeGoddamnLetters Jun 06 '25

Silly place to build if you ask me

237

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.

202

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."

11

u/adamnevespa Jun 06 '25

I can totally hear Norm MacDonald saying that

3

u/BorntobeTrill Jun 06 '25

It's a fun gamble!

3

u/thebipeds Jun 07 '25

“Learn to swim, I’ll see you down in Arizona bay”

2

u/Mattna-da Jun 06 '25

The plot of Superman, but with nukes

1

u/solo_d0lo Jun 06 '25

This is beach erosion. Anyone that’s lived best the water has been familiar with it for decades, and their parents knew about it decades prior.

29

u/thatstotallyracist Jun 06 '25

And they continue to do it in Louisiana. I'll just like "Again?"

2

u/Mauri416 Jun 06 '25

What does ‘4 rows back’ mean?

3

u/curvebombr Jun 06 '25

The houses are arranged in rows, first is directly on the beach. There will be a small road way and another row of houses behind that, the 2nd row. So on and so forth.

3

u/Enough_Roof_1141 Jun 06 '25

3 houses used to be in front of it. Then one day it was called to the big leagues.

1

u/saddingtonbear Jun 06 '25

Sorry, struggling to understand this comment. Do you mean that the house got closer to the beach, meaning 4 rows of houses have since been destroyed? Or do you mean they've expanded by 4 rows since she first stayed there, so the house is no longer front row?

3

u/curvebombr Jun 06 '25

The house got closer to the beach, every bad hurricane season tends to delete a row.

2

u/saddingtonbear Jun 06 '25

Wowie, that's crazy. Is the sea level noticeably higher too now, making it pointless to build new buildings in their old places, or is it just not worth it to rebuild in general? I'm from the midwest so not very up to speed on what's goin on at the coast.

2

u/Enough_Roof_1141 Jun 06 '25

It’s different than sea level. The barrier islands are growing and shrinking in different places. Like a river that has oxbows and floods make it carve new paths. A storm can pick the beach up and move it.

1

u/etharper Jun 06 '25

According to NASA sea levels have risen by about 4 in, which doesn't sound like a lot but is.

1

u/Socky_McPuppet Jun 06 '25

FREEEEEDUMB!!!!!!

6

u/Some_Developer_Guy Jun 06 '25

They don't start that close to the beach, the beach erodes it's way to them until this happens. They get washed away and the. The row behind them gets to be beach front. Kind of like sharks teeth.

3

u/good_sativa Jun 06 '25

To be fair, many of the homes that fell we’re originally built 100 yards off the beach

4

u/nyteryder79 Jun 06 '25

Just like all of New Orleans too. I hated that my tax dollars went to rebuilding that City when it's just going to happen again or worse. Whose bright idea was it to build an entire metropolis in an area below sea level right on the coast?

1

u/Nodan_Turtle Jun 06 '25

At some point we'll have to no longer support people whose houses get destroyed in areas like that. If a house is destroyed, take away the right to build on the land again. Give them the insurance money to move somewhere else instead.

3

u/RaspberryFluid6651 Jun 06 '25

It's like hot potato for landlords

2

u/QuinceDaPence Jun 06 '25

That's also why these are usually super bare built and not all fancy(looking) like this.

As long as you acknowledge that anything built on that kind of island is temporary then sure do whatever you want.

2

u/GenericFatGuy Jun 06 '25

Yeah I'm having a hard time having sympathy for a hair-brained decision like this.

Seems like of arrogant too. You think you're gonna beat the ocean?

4

u/Morlacks Jun 06 '25

That house is prolly 30+ years old.

4

u/rgg711 Jun 06 '25

I think it’s reasonable to expect houses to stand up for more than 30 years.

2

u/Nodan_Turtle Jun 06 '25

Sure, but if it needed stilts from the start, then it was always an iffy place to build

4

u/smokinbbq Jun 06 '25

Watch an episode of the TV show "Outer Banks" if you want to see just how many bad decisions can be made in an episode!

3

u/lotsandlotstosay Jun 06 '25

I love that teeny bopper show

3

u/NickU252 Jun 06 '25

I was born on the Outer Banks, that show has nothing to do with the Outer Banks.

3

u/Enough_Roof_1141 Jun 06 '25

That show is filmed in Charleston haha. There are no majestic Live Oaks in the middle of the ocean on a sandbar.

1

u/imkidding Jun 06 '25

For further silliness see New Orleans

1

u/Smile_Clown Jun 06 '25

That's just it, it is silly, but it's due to land costs, zoning and the desperate need to have beach front property, even on a barrier island, which is just ridiculous, even if we were not potentially facing a large sea level rise.

It's stupid in a stable environment. Just a showcase of human stupidity all around.

1

u/meta358 Jun 06 '25

Probably wasn't that silly 30-50 years ago before global warming started changing weather.

2

u/Secret-One2890 Jun 07 '25

Even the Bible says it's a bad idea to build on sand, so we've known it's a silly idea for at least 50 years.

1

u/solo_d0lo Jun 06 '25

When they built it it was probably much farther away from the water. Beach erosion is a bitch

1

u/RedditIsDeadMoveOn Jun 07 '25

Dig down, build a magnificent dwarven fortress.

1

u/EconomicColors Jun 07 '25

They told me I was daft to build a castle in a swamp, but I built one all the same.

0

u/letskeepitcleanfolks Jun 06 '25

🎶The foolish man built his house upon the sand, the foolish man built his house upon the sand... 🎵

0

u/BlackGuysYeah Jun 06 '25

Seriously. I don’t know how they do it in NC but in most states the amount of hoops you have to jump through to get building permits should surely disqualify this area from any resident housing.

0

u/beetus_gerulaitis Jun 06 '25

Very good pig country

-1

u/J-Dabbleyou Jun 06 '25

Silly place to build? No. With all the work that goes into that, the contractor made bank, and location probably means they were well above state average. It’s a great place to build; plus WHEN (not if) the structure falls, they can make more money building another one. It’s actually a genius place to build. It is however a very stupid place to buy a property lol

2

u/SomeGoddamnLetters Jun 06 '25

I mean if there are enough financially handicapped people to sell shit like this to, more power to them

0

u/J-Dabbleyou Jun 06 '25

I work in high end construction. If you think that house is the owner’s “main house”, think again lol. I’m working on a project for a client who owns 12 homes like this, and he’s had 2 coastal homes destroyed in the last few years. He just keeps contracting another one lol