Officials in an Outer Banks community are pleading with people to stop digging deep holes in the sand and leaving them unfilled when they leave the beach.
In just one day last week, the Kill Devil Hills ocean rescue supervisor responded to three large holes on the beach.
They said collapses occur in holes just a few feet deep, that people should never dig a hole deeper than it is wide, and children and adults should not dig holes deeper than their knees when standing in them.
Sand holes make it challenging for first responders to quickly get to an emergency on the beach, and they can cause damage to the responder's vehicles and create a secondary emergency.
The added that people at the beach are far more likely to experience a sand hole collapse than a shark attack.
Last month, a 7-year-old girl died and her 9-year-old brother was also trapped when the hole they were digging on a Florida beach collapsed.
In May of last year, a 17-year-old from Virginia died when a hole dug in the side of a sand dune at Cape Hatteras National Seashore collapsed.
