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August 7, 2026 / 7:56 PM EDT
/ CBS News
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In Buxton, a village on one of the barrier islands of North Carolina's Outer Banks, it's go time for Dare County Manager Bobby Outten and his crew in their efforts to restore several miles of eroded shoreline. "We have a huge economy that we need to protect, and the only reason anybody comes to Dare County is to either fish, buy a boat or go to the beach," Outten told CBS News.His crew is in the process of taking 2 million cubic yards of offshore sand from the ocean bottom and pumping it onto a 3-mile stretch of badly weathered and eroded beaches. "So we're building a beach," Outten, who also serves as the Dare County attorney, explained. "Our beaches and our dunes are our levee system. That's what keeps the water out from damaging our infrastructure, protecting tourism, infrastructure."In the fall of 2025, several homes on this stretch of beach in Buxton were swept into the Atlantic as the region was pummeled by powerful tides and flooding from multiple hurricanes. At the time, ocean waves were crashing 70 to 100 yards inland. It's an issue worsened by climate change that has plagued the area for the last six years. Since 2020, 32 homes in the Cape Hatteras National Seashore area north of Buxton have collapsed into the Atlantic Ocean, according to numbers from the National Park Service. Residents hope this new Dare County-funded project saves this area and protects any sort of future developments from new storms.
