RODANTHE, N.C. (WAVY) — All that’s left of 23214 Corbina Drive is a septic tank now visible from the washing away sand and the house it was attached to.
The video of the house floating out to sea is stunning, and continuing to blow up on social media. The debris is breaking apart.
Jessica Windsor, like everyone else on the beach, has been talking about “The Floating House.”
“It goes to show you there’s a lot of power in water, and I don’t think people realize it,” Windsor said. “It’s enough to pull concrete, storm drains, everything out to the ocean. I mean, an entire house.”
Rodanthe resident Adam Bittman took lots of photos.
“This is just erosion, and we live on a barrier island that shifts,” Bittman said, “so we must adjust to Mother Nature to a certain extent.”
Bittman has become a self-proclaimed activist to protect Rodanthe and is concerned about the need to do something about endangered houses before they break up and go out to sea.
It’ll take weeks to get all the debris out of the ocean.
Windsor saw her own destruction.
“All the concrete here was up here,” Windsor said. “There was fiberglass, and the pool in the middle and then as the storm surge kept coming in it pulled more of it out. It took the pool out, and then eventually took the rest of the concrete out too.”
Hot tubs and pools were no match for nature’s fury they float away too,
“And all this concrete from that house, so this is from this house,” Windsor said, “but all this is from those subsequent houses that had stuff just falling off.”
Bittman took lots of pictures and spoke about the unseen debris in the water — the nails, the sharp edges,
“Look how dangerous this is at low tide, even when that tide comes up a little bit,” Bittman said, “but once the tide comes up, you won’t see all the debris below the water.”
In the end, Windsor provides the silver lining of the swells that paid a visit as Ernesto passed,
“We are blessed no one got hurt when it was happening,” Windsor said. “What else can you ask for? Nature takes out whatever she wants to.”
Celebrating a Wedding Anniversary
The beautiful cottage was floating away.
Much time, money and love was put into it to make it a special place.
Julia and Patrick Farris from Williamsburg, celebrating 35 years of marriage, saw it all unfold.
“It just looks like a floating house, and it floated off into nothing,” Julia Farris said. “It went so fast. It just slid right into the ocean, which is incredible. It was a gorgeous house. A year or two ago, we were thinking about renting it. It is gorgeous.”
Her husband corrected the present tense to the past tense.
“It was gorgeous,” he said.
The Farris’ love Rodanthe. They always stay here. Do you know why?
“The last few years we’ve wanted to stay here,” he said, “because it won’t be here very much longer, and we are on borrowed time in Mirlo Beach.”