INSIDE: Southern sisters create drama at WICA, Island Life, A10
Record South Whidbey
SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 2, 2013 | Vol. 89, No. 10 | www.SOUTHWHIDBEYRECORD.com | 75¢
Slide hammers houses at Possession One destroyed, another hit hard By JIM LARSEN Record editor A sizable landslide at Possession Point Wednesday afternoon destroyed one summer home and damaged another. A two-bedroom cabin owned by Bellingham residents Morgan and Laurie Bartlett was knocked off its foundation by tons of mud and trees. Its twisted remains sat precariously on a ledge high above a bulkhead, but the bathroom portion was gone. A medicine cabinet below the concrete bulkhead spilled out its contents, and on the beach further toward the water was the paneling, drywall and other debris that once comprised the bathroom. Neighbors said they had just spent $30,000 fixing it up and that insurance isn’t available in such a slideprone area. The Bartletts weren’t there when the slide happened nor on Thursday morning when the owners of the neighboring house, Lake Stevens residents Glenn and Karen VanProvone, started what looked like an endless task of cleaning up. Their home wasn’t destroyed, but one corner including the roof was covered by muck, the chimney was knocked off, alder branches stuck out everywhere like crazy decorations, and a storage building was ruined. Glenn pried the door open with a crow bar and started handing stuff out to Karen, including an American flag they proudly fly in the summer. The soaking wet and incredibly heavy clay mud and sand that had destroyed the Bartletts’ house stopped just behind the VanProvones’, but it took out the power and water supply and covered the back yard in several feet of muck, climbing partway up the back of the house.
“Two years ago there was another slide above the trees and I worked two years to clean it up,” Glenn said. “I’m getting tired of digging.” He was hoping this would be a summer of easy waterfront living instead of disposing of landslide material. The area hit by the landslide is called The Cove by its few residents, and it’s separated by about a quarter mile from a long line of waterfront homes at the end of Possession Road. The road itself cuts across and down the steep bluff and a sign warns drivers of possible landslides. The homes are all accessible either by walking or boating. The community shares a sidewalk. Glenn VanProvone walked to his home, got his boat and motored back to the parking lot to pick up his wife, along with a chainsaw and provisions for the day. They had no intention of spending a night sleeping beneath the ominous bluff. Walking the mile from the road end to The Cove, numerous smaller slides were evident and the beach at high tide was nearly impassable due to toppled trees. A group of women walkers, the Whidbey Striders from the Senior Center, had to turn back due to the high water and alder barriers. When Karen VanProvone stepped out of the boat, what she saw was worse than she had expected. “It’s worse, a lot worse, than I thought,” she said. She went to work picking up and piling branches, with an attitude of resignation that you have to start somewhere. Walking toward the wreckage were Darrell and Susan Posch, who have lived for decades in the relative safety of the other side of Possession Point See slide, A2
Sheriff’s deputy force depleted, tax proposed By JUSTIN BURNETT Staff reporter
Jim Larsen / The Record
Above: The summer home owned by Morgan and Laurie Bartlett is considered a total loss as the landslide pushed it off its foundation, twisted the structure and ripped off the bathroom, which splattered on the beach below. Left: Karen VanProvone carries an American flag to safety after husband Glenn pulled it out of a destroyed shed.
Staffing woes within the Island County Sheriff’s Office and subsequent fears of losing 24-hour coverage on Camano and Whidbey islands have helped breathe new life into hopes for a lawand-justice tax. Sheriff Mark Brown has been scratching his head over the past month wondering how to deal with a string of existing or pending officer vacancies; two have already left, two others are looking at new jobs elsewhere and up to three more are on the verge of retirement. Because it takes nearly seven months for new recruits to hit the road in a squad car from their date of hire, he will likely have to fill the gap with overtime and, possibly, the unpopular prospect of canceling vacation time. Not only does that leave him with the headache of trying to scratch up funding for the extra overtime, but he’s still left with the day-to-day realities of illness or other unexpected staffing problems, such as medical leave due to injuries. The department has already implemented new policies to manage the problem. On Jan. 16, a memo went out to all commissioned deputies alerting them that they were no longer to respond to residential burglary alarms or wireless 911 area checks. But Brown and department officials fear this is just the beginning, that eventually the end result will be the loss of 24-hour coverage in Island County, first on Camano and then on Whidbey. “I’m certainly going to fight to keep that from happening but I can’t guarantee it,” Brown said. See tax, A9