Second house in 24 hours collapses in Rodanthe
Click here to read the Saturday afternoon update
Another oceanfront home in Rodanthe collapsed on Friday night, September 20, making it the fourth Rodanthe home to collapse in 2024, and the ninth home to collapse since 2020.
Cape Hatteras National Seashore (CHNS) law enforcement rangers arrived on the scene shortly after receiving a Dare County dispatch call at 9:18 p.m. and confirmed that the one-story house had fallen and had apparently washed out into the ocean before the bulk of it returned to the beach at the south end of G A Kohler Court.
The unoccupied home, located at 23009 G A Kohler Court, was a four-bedroom, two-bath structure that was built in 1981 and was owned by a resident of Philadelphia, PA.
This is the second home in 24 hours to collapse on G A Kohler Court, as an adjacent house collapsed early Friday morning, which caused damage to the home that fell hours later.
“We’ve been monitoring that house, as it was already in danger,” said Mike Barber, Public Affairs Specialist for CHNS, in an interview with the Island Free Press before the second home fell. “It appears that several of the pilings were taken out, so it has an elevated chance of collapsing.”
As of Friday night, the owner of the second home did not have a contractor in place to clean the debris.
“We have been strongly recommending that the owner have a contractor ready to go for quite some time now,” said David Hallac, National Parks of Eastern North Carolina Superintendent, in an email to the Island Free Press. “We will be continuing discussions with her this morning.”
The homeowner of the first collapse had a contractor on site on Friday.
CHNS advised visitors to avoid the beach in a Saturday morning press release due to dangerous debris in the water and on the shoreline.
“At the north end of Rodanthe and for miles to the south, [CHNS] urges visitors to stay out of the water and wear hard-soled shoes when walking on the beach to avoid injuries from hazardous floating debris and nail-ridden wooden debris,” stated the press release. “Due to potentially dangerous debris on the beach and in the water to the north and south of the collapse site, temporary beach closures for public safety may be necessary.”
Beachgoers in Rodanthe reported debris from the second house washing up on the beach late Friday night near the Rodanthe Pier, roughly a mile south of G A Kohler Court.
On Friday, debris removal from the first home collapse began just hours after the house fell, however, the debris field extended roughly 10 miles south to ORV Ramp 25 by Friday afternoon.
National Park Service staff will be on the beach again today to assist with moving debris above the high tide line.
The previous 2024 home collapses, (prior to the two collapses on Friday, Sept. 20), included an unoccupied home on Corbina Drive that collapsed on August 16 and a home at the end of Ocean Drive in Rodanthe that collapsed on May 28.
On March 13, 2023, an oceanfront home collapsed at East Point Drive in Rodanthe, and on May 10, 2022, two unoccupied homes located on Ocean Drive collapsed within a 12-hour period.
In February 2022 and May 2020, two additional Rodanthe homes in the Ocean Drive vicinity also collapsed into the ocean.
All of these home collapses resulted in a large debris field on Hatteras Island, which was addressed and cleaned up by the National Park Service, local volunteers, and/or contractors enlisted by the homeowners themselves.
No personal injuries were reported in connection with any of the collapses.
