Dangerous surf sweeps under homes in the Outer Banks

Hurricane Erin sent waves crashing against homes in the Outer Banks on the evening of Aug. 20, leading to dangerous conditions.

Transcript

00:00Well, Allie, how's it going out there? I see you moved up to slightly higher ground.

00:07Yeah, guys, we're live from Rodanthe, North Carolina. Just as you mentioned, Hurricane Aaron

00:11churning in the Atlantic, right? We know we're not going to get that direct hit, but that doesn't

00:16mean that we aren't going to see those tropical storm-like conditions. In fact, we have already

00:20started to see those over the last couple of hours. With that, maybe rain later on today,

00:25but it's those wind gusts anywhere from 30 to 50 miles per hour, and the rip currents,

00:30that rough surf, which comes along with the storm surge that we are going to see throughout the

00:36day today. That'll last into tonight. We could see some pretty strong, significant conditions

00:41into early tomorrow morning, but we're talking about that rough surf. How about anywhere from

00:467 to 10-foot waves at times, even higher than that, right? So again, that's just something

00:52to keep in mind as we are moving throughout the evening here. The other thing I want to

00:57point out is going to be homes just like this one, again, live from Rodanthe. These are the homes

01:03that are the ones to watch here, okay? They have lasted through a number of hurricanes over the

01:10years. Unfortunately, they are on their last leg, okay? Whether or not they come down potentially

01:18in the process of Hurricane Aaron churning in the Atlantic, moving its way throughout

01:22the water and leaving those impacts in this region, whether or not we see one of these homes

01:29comes down, only time will really tell here. But that is certainly going to be one to watch over the

01:35next couple of hours. But again, we're talking that storm surge. And if we can, let's show this water

01:41how quickly, how fast it really comes up here. That is then going on to the streets, the neighborhoods

01:48here in town. And that is impacting not only that home that we're seeing right up along the shoreline

01:54there, but then neighborhoods as well. Highway 12, that is essentially the one way in and one way out

02:01when you're talking Outer Banks. So with that, there have been a number of officials, crews that have

02:08been working throughout the day today to really try and get up as much sand to try and salvage

02:14Highway 12 for those that can get in and out of the area. But we've already seen a number of areas

02:19that are on those mandatory evacuation orders. Parts of Highway 12 has completely closed down. We heard

02:26earlier, Hatteras Island is one of those locations. That'll start to move up to Buxton, which is where we

02:33were live earlier, and then potentially to places like right here in Rodanthe. Again, we're going to

02:39continue to follow this throughout the evening today as we continue to check in with you guys. We'll

02:46certainly give you a good view of the homes behind us here. But again, that storm surge, the Atlantic

02:50Ocean, wow. Angry ocean, guys, here in Rodanthe, North Carolina. All right. Well said. AccuWeather's

03:00Allie Reed, live in Rodanthe. Allie, thanks so much for that report.