WHITE RIVER TOWNSHIP, Mich. (AP) – A small home along the Lake Michigan shoreline in Michigan fell down a sandy bluff in an area plagued by erosion.
Muskegon County officials had been monitoring the condition of the White River Township home which toppled over about 11 p.m. Tuesday, according to WOOD-TV.
Neighbor Bob Lloyd also was checking on the home which he said has been unsafe for a while.
“It was raised off the back of the foundation three inches and I knew it was imminent it was going over,” Lloyd told WZZM-TV. “I heard this sound ... and I looked and could just see the house going.”
The home’s owner was at another property when it fell. She wanted neighbors to pitch in for the cost of a shoreline rock wall to slow erosion but ran out of time, according to WZZM-TV.
White River Township is about 50 miles (80 kilometers) northwest of Grand Rapids.
Rising Great Lakes levels and storms over Lakes Michigan, Huron and Superior have caused beach erosion, flooding and damage to seawalls and roads.
An October storm battered the Lake Michigan shoreline near Spring Lake, Michigan, and swept away up to 20 feet of dunes in some communities.
Michigan environmental regulators said in October they would expedite permits for homeowners seeking to place rocks or build seawalls to prevent erosion.
The National Park Service has said it will work with Beverly Shores in northwestern Indiana to install sand traps along the Lake Michigan shoreline to combat beach erosion at the Indiana Dunes National Park.