When Janet Reid felt her Northeast D.C. living room shake Wednesday morning, she assumed another earthquake had hit the area.
“But when I saw smoke coming in the window, there was a sense of urgency,” she said, looking on at the real cause of the commotion — a blue Dodge Durango wedged against the side of her house.
The crash happened at about 10 a.m. at the intersection of Douglas and 24th streets in Northeast. The driver of the vehicle fled, D.C. fire department spokesman Pete Piringer said.
Mrs. Reid’s daughter Tanya Reid, 30, and a neighbor initially gave chase but were unable to stop the driver. He disappeared into a cluster of nearby warehouses.
“I saw my neighbor taking off and he didn’t have no shoes,” Tanya Reid said. “I am two weeks off of knee surgery, and I tried to run after him, but I was too slow.”
Police were looking for the driver and are investigating to figure out whether the vehicle was stolen.
A sideswiped car on Douglas Street and an obliterated chain-link fence in a neighbor’s yard show the vehicle’s path as it careened toward the Reids’ home.
Tanya Reid said her grandmother, who is visiting from out of town, was shaken up and taken to the hospital as a precaution. She and her mother, the only other two people in the house at the time, were uninjured, she said.
Damage to the home was still being assessed, Mr. Piringer said.
Watching as firefighters hooked a cable running from a fire truck to the back of the Durango and dragged it away from the house, Tanya Reid remained upbeat.
“As long as the car is gone before my daughter gets home from school, it’s a good day in my house,” she said. “It’s a new day with a new ornament in the house.”
• Andrea Noble can be reached at anoble@washingtontimes.com.
Please read our comment policy before commenting.