Drone footage captures house nearly falling into sea after bomb cyclone hits East Coast

The owners of the house have been petitioning to move it further back from the shore

The bomb cyclone storm that dumped record snow across the northeast over the weekend has left a house in coastal Massachusetts teetering over the ocean, after intense erosion wiped away parts of its foundation and cracked support pillars holding up the home.

“Immense coastal erosion from this weekend’s bomb cyclone in Truro, MA has exposed 6 more pylons with this house on Ballston Beach,” wrote Reed Timmer of Accuweather on Twitter.

“Looks very close to falling in to the Ocean. Many cottages have been lost as the beach has eroded over the years. Delicate ecosystem.”

The clips show the home of Kit and Tom Dennis, with visible cracks in the columns holding the house above the beach on Cape Cod, which was hit with gusts of 99mph winds, the equivalent of a Category 2 hurricane.

Earlier this week, the Truro Zoning Board Appeals told the family they would need to wait and seek permission from building inspectors before going through with a proposal to move the house onto an adjacent property belonging to the family.

“Taking into account what [the National Seashore] means to the town of Truro, what it means to the state, what it means to the country, I don’t think the board should be setting a precedent,” ZBA member Darrell Shedd said on Monday during a virtual hearing.

Others warned the house was in imminent danger.

“It’s going to go into the ocean,” ZBA member Virginia Frazier said, “if we get another storm like we’ve had.”

The town’s Conservation Commission approved the move in August.

Extreme weather was felt all through the region, including heavy snowfalls, hurricane-force winds and massive coastal erosion.

In nearby Brant Rock, Massachusetts, houses were totally encased in ice as sea spray froze onto the buildings.

Some towns in Massachusetts received as much as 30 inches of snow, and the national weather service said strong winds made so many towering snow drifts it was difficult to accurately gauge snowfall.

Boston tied its single-day snow record from 2003, as well as setting the mark for its snowiest 29 January on record.

Nearly 1,000 flights were canceled on Sunday amid the ongoing snow, and Amtrak temporarily suspended its service between Washington DC and Boston.

More than 120,000 lost power in Massachusetts.

The heavy weather was caused by a “bomb cyclone,” a storm, often over the ocean, which rapidly gains strength as warm and cool air collide.

The climate crisis is strengthening such extreme weather events since warming oceans provide greater energy to these storms.

In 2021, world oceans were the hottest on record. The waters in the Gulf of Maine, which stretches from Massachusetts to Nova Scotia, are warming faster than 96 per cent of global ocean waters.