A late-night crash jolted a quiet Huntington Beach neighborhood Friday when a speeding car careened off the road and crashed into three homes.
The car was driving northbound on Newland Street near Yorktown Avenue around 10:40 p.m. when it took down a tree and damaged three homes, police said.
Danielle Lingenfelter lives at one of the homes that was damaged and says she is still in shock. Lingenfelter lives with her grandmother and her grandmother’s caretaker, but they were on vacation at the time of the crash, and she was at work.
The home with the most damage had a mother and her two children inside, according to Lingenfelter. She says the family is unharmed, but that they are not able to stay in their home because it was yellow-tagged.
The alleged driver of the car was a 17-year-old boy with an 18-year-old passenger, according to the Huntington Beach Police Department. Both passengers were taken to a hospital.
Police say the driver was travelling at a high rate of speed, but drugs or alcohol were not a factor. The driver was cited for driving without a licence and reckless driving.
Meanwhile, neighbors remain concerned for their safety, saying this isn’t the first crash they have witnessed on this stretch of Newland Street.
“It terrified us. It’s a scary thought because in the past, a few years back, I had the same situation. We were dead asleep in the middle of the night and woke up to a loud sound and both of our cars were totaled by one small car,” said Lingenfelter.