NORTON SHORES, Mich. — The shore of Lake Michigan was battered Thursday, July 18, with wind gusts in excess of 40 miles per hour.
The storm that passed over Muskegon County made a bad situation worse for those with homes and cottages on the shore of the big lake.
Beach erosion is especially noticeable in the Idlewild cottage community in Norton Shores.
Phil Ruiter's Idlewild cottage sits more than 50-feet above the water. Its deck is being undermined by erosion and is about to fall into the lake. Ruiter expects the cottage itself will eventually fall to the water too if nothing is done.
"It's not going to be there very long," said Ruiter.
Ruiter purchased the 1890s era cottage in 1959. He recently made the difficult decision to take the cottage down.
"We do not want it to go into the lake," he said. "It might survive, but it'd be so close to the edge that you wouldn't want to take a chance on it."
If the cottage were to go into the lake recovery costs could be four times higher than the bill to remove the cottage.
Record high water levels in the Great Lake are what's causing problems for Lake Michigan property owners.
"This is the highest that we've ever seen it," said Ruiter. "And there's not much we're going to do about it."
In Muskegon County's Fruitland Township David Leonard now has 140-feet between his home and the lake. The buffer between Leonard's home and crashing wave is thanks to a major decision he made following a big storm on Lake Michigan in the summer of 2015.
It caused Leonard to begin a two year process of moving the home to a different spot on his lot.
"They put it on girders and just move it inch by inch," said Leonard.
Now he has a sense of relief while watching waves pull away even more of his property. "That lake is 24/7, it's alive and it just keeps eating away," he said.
Earlier this year the Melching Demolition Co. in Nunica removed a home from the shore of Lake Michigan near St. Joseph. The company plans to remove Ruiter's Idlewild cottage later this summer.
And another Muskegon County resident has asked Melching Demolition to remove their home from the edge of Lake Michigan too.
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