Ocean Isle Beach private street crumbles under king tides and rising waters

OCEAN ISLE BEACH, NC (WWAY-TV) — Grand View Drive in Ocean Isle Beach looks more like a war zone than paradise. A private street at the east end of Ocean Isle Beach has been undermined by an onslaught of king tides and off shore storms.

Luxury homes steps from the beach are facing a devastating change as waters continue to rise. Mickey Cochran has been a resident of Ocean Isle Beach for over 35 years and he said the condition of the area has gotten worse over the past few months

“It looks terrible, it looks absolutely depressingly devastating,” Cochran said. “Everybody that’s involved down here knew what they were getting into when they got into it and that’s the bottom line.”

Residents living in the development are paying for the reconstruction of a cul-de-sac. Town manager, Justin Whiteside said because it is owned privately the town is not funding the development’s street reconstruction and erosion prevention.

Whiteside said the area is not unfamiliar with erosion following high tides.

“Really it’s nothing out of the ordinary, I mean it’s kind of an eb and flow situation,” Whiteside said. “We may go a few years and not have this type of erosion and unfortunately right now we’ve had storms that luckily haven’t affected us directly.”

Whiteside said they are supplying sandbags to public areas on the beach and are on standby ahead of heavy rainfall expected this weekend.

“There are some sand bags being installed at a residential development east of the groin, all of those are permitted through the division of coastal management,” Whiteside said.

The town of Ocean Isle Beach said the beach is due for renourishment this winter.