Pinball car crashhit Porirua like a storm
It sounded like a tornado had hit Porirua. But the weather – dreadful as it was on January 3 – was not to blame.
Instead, a car ripped through several properties, leaving smashed cars and fences strewn in its wake.
The crash was so powerful it left a piece of the vehicle on the roof of one house.
Warspite Ave resident Rosemary Ranapia-Ratima was woken about 1.50am by a roar that sounded like a tornado was tearing through the front section of her home.
‘‘I looked out, and I couldn’t believe it. It was devastation.’’
The offending Subaru Forester finished up wedged under the front steps of one of the houses.
It destroyed the Toyota Corolla parked in Ranapia-Ratima’s front driveway, tossing the vehicle aside on the way through.
A single antenna from the Forester was left hanging off the roof of the house where the car had come to a halt.
‘‘I was absolutely shocked,’’ Ranapia-Ratima said. ‘‘You’ve got your car behind the fence, you think you’re safe, and you’re not. Your fence goes, your car goes, and everything bloody goes.’’
In the moments after the crash Ranapia-Ratima struggled to piece together what had caused the damage.
She called the police to tell them about the mysterious trail of destruction, then noticed the Forester ‘‘pancaked’’ under her neighbours’ front steps.
Moments before, neighbour Ken Tangaroa stumbled out of his home half asleep after being woken by his father-in-law banging at his door to tell him of the crash. Tangaroa was confronted by the sight of his Mitsubishi Pajero in a crumpled mess on his driveway.
He ‘‘wasn’t the happiest per- son’’ at the sight of his wrecked SUV, which was insured, but said he was just glad that his family was not hurt.
Neither of the neighbours saw the occupants of the car, who had dragged themselves out of the wreckage and immediately left the scene.
The Subaru was impounded.