Massive waves from Hurricane Erin have pummeled beaches from Florida to New England, flooding roads, shutting down beaches and eating away the coastline. The storm is spinning just off the Eastern Seaboard, with waves nearly 20 feet tall recorded just off the Outer Banks of North Carolina.
"I've been surfing for 60, 70 years. I've never seen a swell this far ahead of the hurricane, anywhere near anything like this," Malvern Wiche of Rodanthe, North Carolina, told AccuWeather as Erin approached. "It's amazing."
Several houses along the coast of North Carolina are at risk of collapsing into the sea as the pounding surf causes coastal erosion and threatens protective dunes. Water has been sweeping underneath the structures for days, revealing just the wooden stilts that are keeping them above the rising water.
Highway 12, which runs along North Carolina's Outer Banks, was closed due to Erin, with the road covered with water and sand. People who did not evacuate ahead of the storm have hunkered down and are awaiting for conditions to improve and crews to clear and reopen the vital highway.
Beaches close from Carolinas through New York
While North Carolina is getting hit the hardest by the waves from Erin, the hurricane is threatening beaches all along the U.S. Atlantic Coast. Popular destinations along the coasts of New Jersey, Maryland, New York, Delaware and Virginia have all been closed to swimmers, largely due to the threat of rip currents.
"For the protection and for the safety of our swimmers and lifeguards, we want to make sure and encourage the public not to venture out into the waters," NYC Parks Commissioner Iris Rodriguez-Rosa told AccuWeather.
Rip currents are the primary danger as the turbulent ocean can quickly pull swimmers out away from the coast, which can turn into a life-threatening situation in a matter of minutes.
"We're not preventing them from being out in the sand, and being able to, to view the water, but we want them to understand that we are very, very serious, about, not having them be in the water," she added.
The rip current risk will remain elevated for several more days, even as Erin starts to shift away from the United States.
Erin a test for hurricane-prone Florida
The large waves and rough surf were a litmus test for beaches in Florida that have been hit by multiple hurricanes in recent years.
Daytona Beaches Shores, Florida, was hit particularly hard by Hurricane Nicole in 2022. Recovery from the storm is still ongoing, but work has been accomplished over the past three years to mitigate damage from future storms, like Hurricane Erin.
"The Army Corps of Engineers came in and they used dredging of the inlet, and they took that sand from the bottom of the inlet and redistributed it all throughout the neighborhood," John Connolly, Daytona Beach Shores resident, told AccuWeather. "They built up the dunes and they replaced all the trap bags, which they put in earlier to protect the dunes from the surf, [sic] and filled it in with more sand."
Conditions are starting to improve in Florida as Erin tracks away, allowing officials to assess the damage and determine how well the new hurricane defense system worked.
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