BOSTON -- Crews demolished a house on Northern Boulevard on Plum Island Wednesday after officials decided beach erosion had put the property in danger of falling into the sea.

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Earlier in the day, Newbury fire crews evacuated the home, shutting off water, power and sewer service to the structure when it became apparent that beach erosion had put the property in danger of falling into the sea.

The oil company was also asked to drain the home's oil tank. The white clapboard house could be seen hanging precipitously over the edge of a cliff, with foamy surf crashing just beneath the back porch.

"It looks like it might go," said Newbury Conservation Commission member Doug Packer.

Several other nearby homes, south of the structure and also built on the dunes, were also precariously close to the surf crashing along the shore. Building debris from at least one of the homes could be seen floating in the water.

"We were down there about 9:30 this morning and about an hour later the front porch went. Once the front porch went, and the debris got in the water, it impacted the cement block foundation to the east of the structure and then the house started to teeter ... you could see daylight underneath the structure ... it is definitely listing toward the ocean," Packer said.

Packer confirmed that two or three homes nearby are in danger and a few miles away, near 54th street, there are a couple more imperiled structures, he said.

"They don't have too many storms left between them and the ocean," Packer said.

Plum Island is a slender peninsula of land on Massachusetts' Cape Ann coast, north of Ipswich and Gloucester, about 40 minutes north of Boston.

Residents have said that a lack of repairs to jetties and dredging of the nearby Merrimack River in recent years have contributed to massive erosion of certain sections of the island's beaches.

A strong rainstorm Tuesday lashed the area with high winds, roiling surf in the already highly eroded area.

Packer said the town has been working with the Army Corps of Engineers and other federal and state agencies to try to "get a fix for Plum Island."

The town building inspector was trying to make an assessment.

"There has been some talk about getting some cribbing down on the beach and blocking up underneath (the house) but that would only get you until about, maybe 9 o'clock tonight, because when that next tide comes in it would undermine the cribbing. So, it would be more of a piling type situation that would be necessary to save this and whether that kind of effort could be put together in time to save this is questionable," Packer said.

It was not clear whether the house was a summer residence or whether it was being lived in as a permanent residence.