Residents of North Oak Avenue weren’t surprised when the hill at the end of the street gave way Tuesday, leaving the vacant house at the end close to collapse.
They’ve been worried about it for years.
“I’ve been waiting for it to fall for the last two years,” said Gene Vanvalkenburgh, who lives in the apartment across the street from 161 North Oak Ave., where the mudslide happened.
“We were worried about the house in general,” said neighbor Tamara Egan. “Outside, you could tell the house was shifting. I was shocked it didn’t come crashing down.”
The Slide
At about 1:30 p.m., the dirt, rocks and trees in the hill behind the house slid down a steep embankment: At the bottom is the Curtis Brook and the Riverview Condominiums.
Neighbors reported hearing a loud noise, then looking outside to see part of the hill was gone.
Neighbor Jennifer Maybeck was surprised the rocks and trees didn’t hit a condo complex at the bottom of the hill.
“There are two trees leaning on two other trees right there,” Maybeck said this afternoon. “If those trees weren’t there, those trees would have went right into the condos.”
No one was injured, but one house on North Oak Avenue and several units at the Riverview Condominiums were evacuated Tuesday as a precaution because emergency crews feared the house at 161 North Oak Ave. could fall at any moment.
Without the support of the ground, the brick foundation of the home started to crack, said Shelton police Detective Sgt. Kevin Ahern.
The city called in the state’s Urban Search and Rescue task force to help investigate the structural stability of the home and the building across the street.
Running Water?
Mayor Mark Lauretti, who was on scene investigating with building officials, said it appeared that the pipes in the vacant home froze in the recent cold weather last week. When the water melted, it started pouring out into the basement and the dirt supporting the foundation.
“The water was running through the house and down the hillside. It appears it just became saturated,” Lauretti said.
Police, firefighters, medical responders and building officials spent the day investigating the scene and said the vacant building would likely have to be torn down.
As of about 5:30 p.m., building and city officials were meeting to determine how to proceed.
“Whose Problem Is It?”
Neighbors along North Oak Avenue and the Riverview Condominiums wonder whether the city should have done something to fix the problem before the mudslide happened.
The house is empty and for sale. City officials Tuesday said the home had been foreclosed upon and they had not determined yet who was the owner.
Some neighbors said they talked to city officials about the erosion after a tree fell down at the end of the road in 2008, creating a sink hole.
“We just expressed concern,” to Lauretti after the tree fell, said Egan, a neighbor.
Lauretti said there weren’t requests for the city to do something about the hill, but the city did put up fencing and some barriers at the end of the road to signify where it ends and prevent anyone from driving or falling off the cliff.
Lauretti said the other problems rest on private property.
“It’s not our property. We don’t go on private property,” Lauretti said. “I’m not sure where the road stops. That would be our only responsibility — where the road is.”
“Now that it’s dangling,” Egan said, “It’s like ‘Whose problem is it?’”
Click the replay button below to read a live chat the Valley Indy conducted from the scene Tuesday afternoon.
