Environment & Energy

When those homes were built, there were a couple of hundred yards of beach between the houses and the ocean. Water erosion has swept away those beaches and the houses are getting destroyed. If you build on a barrier island, sooner or later the ocean will claim it.

My wife built a 2-bedroom 2-bathroom “beach box” 8-feet up on stilts on Ocracoke Island, south of Hatteras where the houses fell into the sea. After Hurricane Dorian swept across Ocracoke with a 7-foot wall of water, when many low-lying houses were destroyed, she sold her house. Sooner or later, that island will be hit harder.

Barrier islands in hurricane zones don’t make much sense.