Brighton Beach loses another cabin to landslide

An ongoing landslide at Brighton Beach in Clinton destroyed another shoreline cabin late Friday. The event took place at about 10 p.m., according to South Whidbey Fire/EMS authorities. The building was not occupied and no one was hurt.

An ongoing landslide at Brighton Beach in Clinton destroyed another shoreline cabin late Friday.

The event took place at about 10 p.m., according to South Whidbey Fire/EMS authorities. The building was not occupied and no one was hurt.

The cabin is adjacent to two buildings owned by the Wood family, which were heavily damaged in previous slides. One took place in December, which demolished a neighbor’s summer home, and another slide happened in February. That event resulted in county officials red tagging the Wood’s buildings and yellow tagging a two-story blue cabin directly to the south.

Red tags prohibit entry and yellow tags allow limited entry to retrieve personal belongings.

It was yellow-tagged home that was destroyed by the latest event Friday. Mud took out the first floor, and a large tree is now poking through the roof.

“It pretty much came right down on the blue house,” said Jon Beck, deputy chief of the fire district.

The Wood’s buildings were largely untouched. Another boat house farther to the south was also damaged, and mud and debris piled up along another cabin. It was occupied during the slide, said Beck, and the woman reported hearing the slide come down.

“She said it sounded like a freight train coming down the bluff,” Beck said.

She voluntarily agreed to evacuate the home for the time being, he said.

The deputy chief added that the area around the slide remains extremely dangerous and should be avoided, even by curious Brighton Beach residents. This is an ongoing event that’s progressing southward, and there’s a lot of debris on the bluff that could prove deadly if another slide occurs.