OCEAN ISLE BEACH, N.C. — Hurricane Isaias left Ocean Isle defenseless against wind and waves when it wiped out the dunes that protected the beach.

The east end of the island was already dealing with severe beach erosion before the storm, but now, compounded with what is known as "king tide," homeowners are desperate for help.

King tide is caused by the Earth, Sun, and moon being aligned, which creates the greatest force on the tides and results in the highest high tide.

All that now stands between some homes and the ocean is a barrier of sandbags, but Barrie McMurtrie doesn't even have that. His house is completely surrounded by water at this point.

His front steps are all that touch down on rapidly disappearing sand, but somehow he manages to keep his sense of humor.

“What we're thinking of doing is putting some floats underneath and calling it Noah's Ark,” McMurtrie says.

He dutifully pours sand back in its place, but that money is coming out of his own pockets. Homeowners pay for all of the sandbags surrounding their property and any sand they bring in to fill what has eroded.

“Every bit of the work that we've done has gone to waste, however, if we didn't put that work in, our house would probably be floating out there somewhere,” McMurtrie explains.

McMurtrie says sometimes it feels like he's fighting a losing battle, and if he had known there would be no protection against the tide, he would've picked up his house and moved it to another lot.

At this point though, he says he will see it through to the bitter end.

“If you don't attack it, it will end up attacking you,” McMurtrie adds. “It's an ongoing maintenance. If you don't do it, then you're going to lose your home.”

Beach re-nourishment is an option, but McMurtrie says that's only temporary and the sand will just wash back into the inlet as it has in the past.

“This is happening here every single time there's a full moon, king tide, and obviously hurricanes,” McMurtrie says. “And the problem is you can only keep doing it for so long. It's tiring, it does your head in, it's awful.”