Houses high above the Skagit River continue to teeter precariously on the edge as strong currents have cut more than a hundred feet of property in a day.
It was a dream for people to live on the spot in Lyman, but it's turned into a nightmare.
"Overnight we've lost, I'd say, 60 feet of land," Michael Taxdahl said.
Taxdahl's house now has a sidewalk to nowhere. The Skagit River, greedy for land, has cut into more than a hundred feet in some spots. River bank slides away every few minutes and with it goes whatever is on the edge.
It started Wednesday, and since then, three families are now homeless.
"Nobody ever figured in our lifetime this was going to happen here. Otherwise, we would've sold it," Taxdahl said. "Right now I can't even describe the feeling I feel. We don't even want to eat right now. I had the first meal I've eaten in two days a minute ago. It's devastating, absolutely."
If anyone's mad about it, it's Lyman Mayor Eddie Hills. He and others feel like the government has valued fish habitat over people's homes. A levee has not been maintained for years, he says, in an effort to return the river to wild and free habitat for salmon.
Hills feels like the city's been forgotten.
"Frankly I'm tired of it," he told Governor Inslee's office by phone Friday.
He's called state and federal officials for days, begging for help, but none has come.
"Why did you think I called it an emergency. Did you think I called it for fun?" he said during his call with the governor's office. "You guys have failed this whole river. You've failed."
Now left without sturdy homes, some paying mortgages on land that's disappeared, life feels a lot like Taxdahl's sidewalk - futures as uncertain as the river current below.
"It's a sad deal. We never figured in our lifetime this would happen here. We just didn't think this would happen here," Taxdahl said.
The City of Lyman submitted a formal request that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers take emergency action to construct a temporary berm to prevent any further erosion.
