(CNN) — When Stacy Morgan and her husband, Brandon Dodick, bought their beach house in Buxton, North Carolina, in May, they imagined one day spending their retirement there.

Five months later, the house was gone.

Theirs was one of 27 beachfront homes in Buxton and Rodanthe, two villages on Hatteras Island, part of North Carolina’s barrier islands, that have collapsed into the ocean since 2020. Rising sea levels and relentless storms are erasing land faster than locals – or officials – can respond.

The collapses are happening on a thin, sparsely populated stretch of coast. But some experts warn that what’s happening in Hatteras could be a glimpse of what’s to come in other coastal areas as climate change fuels more powerful storms and hastens erosion .

In North Carolina, the loss

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