A Whitney, Texas homeowner set fire to his mansion that was left dangling perilously on the edge of a cliff when part of the cliff gave way.
The homeowner moved his family out of the $800,000 home in a gated community when he noticed the cliff under the house was crumbling into the water.
Construction workers set the home on fire at 11:45 a.m. Friday. About 16 boats and three helicopters circled the area as smoke billowed from the abandoned house.
From Reuters:
The land started to give way in February, and since then about 50 yards of land that separated it from the water’s edge has eroded, said Mark Wilson, the chief deputy for the Hill County Sheriff’s Department.
On Tuesday, a large chunk of the land under the structure collapsed, leaving about half of the house on the ground and half in the air.
The burn, which was authorized by the homeowner, will be carefully monitored and comes after a demolition of the house was seen as too risky due to the unstable ground underneath, officials said.
Owner Rob Webb, who spent his retirement savings on the house, has abandoned the property. He told Dallas television station WFAA he had trouble recognizing the structure from news reports.
“You’re like, ‘Good grief, that is my home,'” Webb told WFAA.
