CLINTON — An ongoing landslide at Brighton Beach destroyed another Whidbey Island shoreline cabin late Friday, and officials are warning people to stay away from the area.
The slide zone, below a 200-foot bluff, is extremely dangerous and should be avoided, said Jon Beck, deputy chief of the South Whidbey fire district. In December and last month, other buildings were seriously damaged by sliding mud and debris.
The latest event took place at about 10 p.m. Friday. The building was not occupied and no one was hurt.
“This whole area is subject to slides,” said Bill Oakes, the Island County public works director. “This is a steep, unstable bluff. When we get high groundwater, it tends to destabilize this. It’s all mapped as geohazard.”
The county has red-tagged damaged buildings, meaning they are too dangerous to enter. The cabin hit Friday had a yellow tag, meaning residents were allowed to remove belongings. Mud took out the first floor, and a large tree is now poking through the roof.
A boat house to the south was also damaged, and mud and debris piled up along another cabin which was occupied during the slide, said Beck. The there woman reported hearing the slide come down.
“She said it sounded like a freight train coming down the bluff,” Beck said.
She agreed to evacuate the home for the time being, he said.
Ben Watanabe of the Whidbey News-Times contributed.
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