In recent months, news of Outer Banks homes falling into the ocean seemed nonstop.
Five fell in Buxton within just one hour in late September. Three more came down in the following days. Another five shortly before Halloween.
Since 2020, 27 homes have collapsed along the Outer Banks, all of them unoccupied, as strong waves from storms and rising waters eat away at the shoreline.
The homes leave behind lots of mess: literally, with huge amounts of debris, and financially, for homeowners and taxpayers.
But the property owners have little incentive to take them down proactively, even when disaster appears likely.
The National Flood Insurance Program helps cover only damage after the fact. It does not pay for people to demolish properties before a storm does.
North Carolina leaders are calling on Congress to change that.
“When these houses collapse, they are not just a tragedy for the homeowner,” Gov. Josh Stein and state Insurance Commissioner Mike Causey wrote in a joint letter to House leaders last month.
“The destroyed houses also spread pollution and debris for miles and repeatedly result in the closure of once pristine National Seashores and other beaches for public safety. Federal and state taxpayer dollars are then used to clean up the aftermath.”
As structured, the NFIP “provides a perverse incentive,” where it can be in homeowners’ financial interest to avoid taking proactive action, they wrote.
The letter urges federal lawmakers to advance legislation that would allow federal flood insurance to cover relocating or demolishing condemned coastal structures nationwide before they fall, capped at $250,000.
The proposed Preventing Environmental Hazards Act of 2025 is cosponsored by members of North Carolina’s congressional delegation from both sides of the aisle, as well as Virginia Republican Rep. Rob Wittman.
A growing headache along the Outer Banks
The string of collapses has recently raised the issue to greater national attention. But it’s long been on the minds of state and local officials, such as Bobby Outten, manager and attorney for Dare County.
The county includes roughly 100 miles of beachfront, including Rodanthe and Buxton. And “like beaches everywhere on the East Coast, they erode,” Outten said.
County officials have stemmed the issue in many places through beach nourishment, or building up sand to buffer erosion.
But that’s growing increasingly costly. Outten said the county hasn't been able to afford beach nourishment in Rodanthe recently, and a project in Buxton three years ago didn’t last the five years officials expected.
The erosion rate of that mile of beach has increased, and waves have grown closer, now reaching underneath many beachfront houses on stilts.
There are currently about 15 houses “that could go anytime,” Outten said.
When a house falls, debris quickly moves in many directions, stretching far beyond property lines. That makes it tricky to neatly divide responsibility for the cleanup.
“From the county's perspective, when we have storms, there is commingled debris, and you don't know whose it is, you don't know where it came from,” he said. “It piles up everywhere.”
The county treats the mess as it would any other storm, removing debris from roadways and beaches. This year’s messes have cost the local government roughly $200,000.
The National Park Service handles what’s in its jurisdiction, which includes the water. Since September, the Cape Hatteras National Seashore has hauled more than 400 truckloads of debris from fallen houses.
The Park Service reaches out to homeowners to try and recover associated costs, not always successfully.
Homeowners are responsible for cleaning up their private property, moving debris out to the right-of-way. Dare County hauls it to a landfill.
“Needless to say, it's a big mess. It's not what anybody wants,” Outten said. “Nobody believes that you're getting 100% of everything that comes out. You don't know what's floating, you don't know what's sinking, you don't know what's farther out there.”
Debris can threaten people’s health and safety and pollute the environment, including from inundated septic systems releasing sewage into the water. The situation also harms the local economy by giving the county a bad image, despite many miles of beaches still in good shape, he said.
A potential "budget-neutral" solution
The renewed push to authorize pre-disaster insurance payments grew out of a collaboration last year by the National Park Service and the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality.
The workgroup laid out short- and long-term ideas for managing threatened oceanfront structures.
Based on aerial imagery from 2020, about 8% of more than 8,000 oceanfront structures across the state were considered at high risk from oceanfront erosion.
The proposed change to the NFIP could provide a “budget-neutral” solution for the most vulnerable structures that are already covered by federal flood insurance, Outten said.
Take a hypothetical homeowner on Hatteras Island whose house is already unlivable and unrentable.
The homeowner has no incentive to remove it, because when it falls, they can get up to $350,000 in pocket from the federal government – $250,000 maximum for damage coverage, plus another $100,000 for the home’s contents, Outten said.
“The question becomes, if NFIP is going to pay that out when it falls a month from now, why not pay it out now, and let's get that house off of the beach before it creates that problem,” he said. “Paying for it today or paying for it next month, really shouldn't make a difference.”
The concept has a precedent.
In the 1980s, after high water levels caused houses in Michigan’s Great Lakes to succumb to bluff erosion, Congress authorized a program that made some structures eligible for NFIP claims to prevent imminent collapse.
North Carolina filed more claims than any other state through that program, according to the state’s recent workgroup report.
But it was discontinued in 1994, replaced by the Flood Mitigation Assistance program, which offers grants instead of insurance. (The Trump administration this year canceled many grants awarded through the program.)
The NFIP initiative offered a quicker fix than the competitive grant process, which can take years to get the money, the North Carolina workgroup noted.
Another way officials could remove structures is through buyout programs. In 2023, the National Park Service used grant funding to buy and tear down two at-risk homes in Rodanthe. The agency has stated it would like to continue the program, but needs a lot more funding.
Meanwhile, local leaders are asking state lawmakers for help to protect Highway 12, the only way in or out of the Outer Banks.
“As the beaches erode and take these houses, the ocean gets closer to Highway 12,” Outten said. “And if we lose Highway 12, and we don't have access for anybody to do anything.”
