Car crashes into Spokane home, missing the residents

Bill and Marie Black were in their living room watching television Sunday night when an unexpected bang shook the entire house on Spokane’s North Side. A car slammed into the corner of their home not far from where they were sitting about 10 p.m. “It was almost like an earthquake,” Bill Black said today as he surveyed the damage and waited for an insurance adjuster to show up. Spokane police said no one was injured seriously in the crash that was triggered by a two-car collision at the intersection of Mallon Avenue and Chestnut Street. The driver of one vehicle fled the scene, and police were looking for that driver and the car, which was described as a late model, white four-door sedan. There was no description of the driver. Officers said the fleeing driver failed to yield right of way at the uncontrolled residential intersection. Black said that when the collision occurred, all he heard was screaming by four young occupants who were in an older model Volvo sedan that crunched into the corner of his house at 2102 W. Mallon Ave. “We ran out and then we saw the car right there,” he said, gesturing toward the damage. Police did not identify the Volvo driver or the occupants. Black said the driver was probably in her late teens. One of four occupants in the Volvo reported minor soreness, police said. The intersection collision knocked the Volvo onto the sidewalk and put it on a trajectory toward the corner of the Black house, police said. The Volvo ran over an old water pump and mining ore car that were part of the front yard landscaping. The car then struck the exterior wall of the house. It dislodged the side wall from the foundation and split open the dining room corner of the house, exposing the interior. The front wall was pushed inward. Black estimated that the damage could reach $30,000 or more, plus the loss to contents inside the home, including a large antique music box. Officers asked anyone with information about the accident or the car that fled to call Crime Check at 456-2233.