Landslide victims may not be covered by insurance

NACHES, Wash. - Denise Martin's dreamhome is now split in two. It lifted up and moved several feet over and repositioned itself and came back down.

If you step inside, the damage is all too clear. The wall is leaning, the ceiling has come apart, and it's still moving.

"I'm still really nervous with the way everything is right now," she said.

It's no stretch to say the scene looks like something out of a horror movie or science fiction film. The ground literally opened up.

But for the people of the Nile Valley, they real life nightmare started with a call to their insurance companies.

"We've just been told that more probable than not there won't be any coverage for our home? What do you do? We don't know yet, we are trying to salvage some of our belongings and find a place to live," she said.

And all on her own.

The State Insurance Commissioner's Office says that's standard under basic policies. Catastrophic events such as earthquakes are rarely covered.

But Martin and most of her neighbors never thought of adding an earth movement rider. Now they've found out that's exactly what they needed to protect themselves against what happened.

"I've heard about flood insurance because of the river, but we sit so far above the river, that was not a worry for ourselves. Nothing was ever mentioned to us about earthquake coverage," she continued.

Martin is not alone. Ron Simmons lost two homes and could be wiped out financially.

"I don't know, we are going to move on, but it is going to be a little more difficult," he said.

As she waits for financial help from the government, Martin knows her family will never call their dream house home again.

Governor Christine Gregoire declared an emergency in Yakima County Tuesday. That will allow the Department of Transportation to seek federal emergency funds.

Road crews also started work on a temporary detour.

Geologists don't know what caused the slide, which doesn't happen very often. Another rotational slide happened there two million years ago. During the slide, the slope acted almost like a wheel, turning and moving a staggering amount of debris.