BUXTON, N.C. — Along a stretch of Hatteras Island where waves crash against hollowed-out pilings and fragments of vinyl siding scattered in the surf, cleanup crews are racing to clear what remains of nine oceanfront homes that collapsed into the Atlantic in just one week.

More than 360 truckloads of debris have already been hauled away from Buxton’s beaches, a staggering amount of wreckage from a cluster of houses built decades ago when the shoreline stretched much farther east.

The homes, some standing since the 1970s, fell as back-to-back offshore storms and unusually high tides chewed through the dune line.

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