Central Whidbey Island Landslide

MBK

The news stations are showing clips of Whidbey Island, a skinny meandering island 55 miles long NNW of Seattle. There are high bluff view homes on the West shore looking out the Strait of San Juan de Fuca, the Olympics, and Victoria.

I own a two acre building lot 12 miles north on the other side of Coupeville...remember the Michael Douglas movie fighting over the house in a divorce? ( War of the Roses )

I had a chance to buy a 100 foot wide by 150 tall highbank, but opted for more acreage and a view over the tops of those actual waterfront places.

Here are some KOMO TV photos....

http://www.komonews.com/news/Homes-evacuated-after-major-landslide-on-Whidbey-Island-200251371.html?m=y&smobile=y&gallery=y

I am sure that sharp vertical cut will force those homes to be moved because it will need to stabilize at a lesser slope.

We used to joke that the waterfronts in front of us would someday be gone. I think I will put my lot up for sale so somebody can move their home to a safe place.

And gosh.... there is a log home down on the water now cut off....no road. It is visible on Google Earth...on the south end of the slide. We looked at it when it was for sale about 1997.

evileye fleagal

new meaning of living on the edge.

montanajoe

Dammmm,,

Dyer_Maker

I feel for those people.

NOAH

You know that the property value just dropped like the cliff[:0] for the rest of the homes that are on the edge now[B)]

11BravoCrunchie

Erosion is a *****. That's why you should never build that close to a cliff in a very wet region like the Pacific Northwest.

Mr. Perfect

I work with two folks that have ties to Whidbey. One lives there (and so does all his family) but is a fair distance from the slide (about a mile?) The other guy has a place not 500 ft. from the slide area. He's going there tonight to assess how much longer he wants to keep that place. The slide cut off the road and walking trail to their beach access.

On the plus side, he has a better view of Puget Sound (because all the trees between him and the water sank down, and he also has fewer neighbors now.

You can see his place in one of the photos at the link. Second row, third photo over, near the "corner" in the ULHC of the photo, his place is the second one over.

Mr. Perfect

quote:Originally posted by Flying Clay Disk
This might be worthy of mention...

A good rule of thumb is to never place a structure within the zone of influence of a slope. To find it (for most soils) you draw an imaginary line from the toe of the slope (where you don't want to wind up), at roughly 45 degrees (through the ground) to the higher elevation. Where the 45 degree line comes out of the ground is roughly the line beyond which no structure should be placed (obviously solid rock might be different). The area between where the imaginary line comes out of the ground and the top of slope is the zone of influence.


The zone of influence just moved.