The county has finally started tearing down this little cabin that was so badly damaged in the flood. It has been the icon of the 2013 flood from the first day when the Weather Channel showed it again and again. It ended up with the floor hanging down, and many tourists have stopped to photograph it.

It is right along the highway - no shoulder or pull-off to park in. And they lost most of the dirt along the river in the flood. There was only a footbridge to it, and that got washed away in the flood.

The demolition contract is $62,000 for that one little cabin. FEMA will pay 75% through a flood hazard mitigation program, the county will pay 12.5%, and the homeowner will be expected to pay 12.5%; $7,750. The price is so high because of the inaccessible location. County staff had to have a special meeting to explain why it was so expensive. I thought about going, but it was a lot of driving time and gasoline to hear someone say 'it's going to cost a lot because the place is so challenging to get to.'





Back in May, the county hired a company to tear it down using an excavator to beat it into pieces and transfer them to large trucks waiting on the highway, but they waited too late in the spring and the river was too high with runoff from snow melt. A week or two sooner, and the river was two feet lower.

For that project, the county didn't make any provision for traffic control, and after about 3 hours of trying to get started, the project supervisor called it off because it was too dangerous for his crew in the raging river, and too dangerous for the news people lining the highway, and too dangerous for the cars passing by that were slamming on their brakes when they saw something was going on. So the cabin sat all summer awaiting its fate.

I think if the owners had hustled over there and propped that floor back up, they might have talked the county into letting them fix up that cabin.



This is how it looked this afternoon. They appear to be disassembling it rather than knocking it down with heavy equipment.



This is the cabin next to it before the flood.



So far, there is no plan to tear this one down, but it has a lot of problems and may be the next to go. One of the problems was the local bear broke in and cleaned out all the cupboards. There was plenty of food left behind because the owners were there at the time of the flood and had just been to town getting ready for family to stay for a week.

Meanwhile, everyone in the canyon is sad about the demolition because these cabins have always been a quaint landmark since the early 1900s.