A beach house in North Carolina was washed into the Atlantic Ocean and destroyed by swells from Hurricane Ernesto during a dramatic scene captured on video by bystanders.
The saltbox-style structure on North Carolina's Outer Banks was unoccupied at the time and no injuries were reported, according to the National Park Service, which oversees its former location on the Cape Hatteras National Seashore.
One video clip posted on social media showed the house surrounded by water as its stilts collapsed around 7:10 p.m. Friday.
After being washed a short distance into the surf, it came to rest and was then pounded by whitecaps that quickly began demolishing the wooden building.
The four-bedroom, two-bathroom house at 23214 Corbina Drive in Rodanthe was built in 1973 and last sold for $339,000 in January 2019, according to the Zillow real estate website.
Its last estimated value was $580,000.
Since 2012, it has been marketed by Midgett Realty of Hatteras, North Carolina, as a vacation rental known as "Dolphin's Point," according to archived webpages.
Its collapse marked the seventh along the Cape Hatteras National Seashore in the past four years. Many nearby homes also appeared to have been damaged on Friday, the National Park Service said.
