A small landslide in Camas damaged a home on Sunday.
A small landslide in Camas damaged a home in the Prune Hill Park area this weekend.
John Trost, who owns a two-story house perched on a hill at 2326 N.W. 29th St., said that he woke up at about 8:30 a.m. Sunday to find his kitchen wall damaged and his back porch destroyed.
He said it looked as though a piece of land — a roughly 400 square foot area at a depth of about 5 feet — slowly slid down the hill onto his porch and crushed part of his house, damaging about 6 feet of a wall and a window.
“I would think it could have been far worse,” he said.
Barbara Cooper, who lives in a house uphill from Trost, said she heard a loud noise Sunday morning that she believes was the slide.
“It was a big boom,” she said. “We went around the house. It was raining so hard, we didn’t get out on our deck.”
When she went onto her deck Monday morning, though, she noticed the damage and called 911, sending the Camas-Washougal Fire Department to Trost’s house.
Crews responded to make sure that everything was safe but learned that no one had been hurt, said Capt. Wade Faircloth.
“We’re definitely not the resource to do anything there,” Faircloth said. “We made sure (the homeowner) was OK.”
Heavy rain fell Saturday: 0.60 inches of precipitation between about 4 and 10 p.m., according to measurements taken at Vancouver’s Pearson Field by the National Weather Service.
“I’m guessing from the heavy rains this weekend, it just resulted in the land beginning to buckle a little bit, causing it to move,” Faircloth said. “It moved from one property into the next.”
Trost said he has lived in the Camas house for more than 10 years, but has never had a previous problem with landslides.
“I try to keep a good attitude, but it’s unfortunate,” he said.
Trost said he wasn’t sure how much it would cost to repair his home, but he does have homeowners insurance.
