A vacant Texas luxury home was left on the verge of plunging 75 feet into a Central Texas lake on Wednesday after the ground under its foundation eroded and left it precariously balanced on a decaying cliff, Reuters reported.
After the $800,000 home was evacuated by its owners about two weeks ago, WFAA-TV in Dallas-Fort Worth reported that the 4,000 square-foot-home has been condemned.
Perched on Lake Whitney, about 75 miles southwest of Dallas, the house is being circled by a local TV news helicopter waiting to record its plunge into the water below.
After a massive piece of land under the house fell into the lake on Tuesday night, half of the house was left dangling in the air and half on the ground, neighbors told local media.
Neighbors Connie Ash and Jackie McNamara, who live across the lake, heard a large chunk of the cliff hit the water about 6:30 p.m. on Tuesday.
"I immediately thought it was an earthquake or blasting; it was loud, really loud," Ash told the ABC affiliate. "And then I saw smoke, dust, water... I don't know, it was a huge cloud of stuff."
Video footage shows a dangling air conditioning unit tethered to the structure.
The land started to give way in February, and since then about 50 yards of territory that separated it from the water's edge has eroded, said Mark Wilson, the chief deputy for the Hill County Sheriff's Department.
Soil and other debris have been falling from beneath the home at White Bluff Resort, some 60 miles south of Fort Worth. Tax records show the house was built in 2007, the Associated Press reported.
The owners, who use it as a second home, have abandoned the property while people are being kept away from it on land and in the lake below, Reuters reported.
"When they built the house, it looked like a safe area, away from the bluff. There is just a lot of the bluff that gave way," Wilson said.
A message left with the resort developer wasn't immediately returned Wednesday.
