Landslide leaves Oregon residents on brink of disaster
OREGON -- The storm system may be on its way out of the Northwest, but it's not done doing damage.
The road leading to Morgan Kottre's house used to be a road, but now it's a cliff.
Kottre has watched the landslide on her family's property for the last six days. What started as a crack, caved into a crater.
Bob Flackus is Kottre's neighbor. Five feet from his front door is now a cliff. A week's worth of nearly non-stop rain in the picturesque part of Tillamook, Oregon, has left Flackus and his wife for 36 years, Dee, literally living near the edge.
Now his retirement home and six others are in danger of being destroyed after nearly 11 inches of rain fell in seven days, opening a hole big enough to fit 11 SUVs.
"Not a sound warning. It just, the land went away," Flackus explained of the landslide.
People are pitching into help -- more than 200 sandbags are holding down a tarp intended to stop the ground from sliding any more.
"I could cry now," said Flackus. "People that I never knew and probably might not see again, came up here to help me save this hill and it just overwhelms me. That's hard."
Thirty yards down from the Flackus home, the landslide has pushed into a barn owned by the Kottre's family.
Morgan Kottre's relatives live alongside the barn. They are now staying in a horse trailer because the home is in danger of being condemned. Kottre, whose house is safe so far, said sandbags have been their best and only option.
"You've got to do something," she said.
Bob Flackus is willing to try anything, if it means staying in the home he and wife call paradise.
"If it starts to move, I'm not going to be stubborn and stay. I will get the hell out," said Flackus. "But until it starts to move, I'm staying."
The hole in front of Flackus' house is 100 feet long, and 50 feet wide. On Monday, he will find out if his home is condemned. He has found out the insurance company will not pay for the damage.