Sabrina Kostick snapped this photo with her phone this morning of the bus and house at the corner of Southwest 13th Street and Southwest McFadden Avenue in Chehalis.
By Sharyn L. Decker
Lewis County Sirens news reporter
This was updated at 7 p.m.
CHEHALIS – Police say they don’t know what caused a Twin Transit bus to crash into a Chehalis house this morning.
No passengers were onboard and nobody was injured, but the bus and the home sustained significant damage, according to authorities.
However, it was a close call for Mei Liu, who had gotten up very early and gone upstairs to stay up with her colicky grandchild, according to a family friend. Her bed is in the downstairs corner that was struck, he said.
“Luckily she wasn’t sleeping in her bed, she would have been under all that debris,” Matt Howard said.
Aid and police called at about 7:30 a.m. to Southwest 13th Street near William Avenue said the bus had been traveling eastward. It plowed through a fence and the yard before striking the split-level home.
Chehalis Police Department detective Sgt. Rick McNamara said initial indications are it was probably a medical issue with the driver and not anything mechanical with the vehicle.
“He said he was turning left and the next thing he knows is he was hitting the house,” McNamara said. “Something happened. He can’t explain it and we can’t explain it.”
Brickwork was knocked off the building and the wall pushed in, a little bit, McNamara said.
Twin Transit General Manager Ernie Graichen said the driver is a 15-veteran with an “excellent record.”
The driver was checked out and appeared to be fine, Chehalis Fire Department Capt. Kevin Curfman said.
However, he was taken to Providence Centralia Hospital to be checked out and for a post-accident drug test, according to Graichen. The driver’s name was not released.
Forty-four-year-old Hieu Duong said he was brushing his teeth when he felt a jolt.
“Suddenly the house moved, like somebody put a bomb outside,” he said.
It scared his children, he said, but the main thing is no one was injured, especially his mother-in-law.
“She’s lucky,” his wife Liu Li said.
“She might not (have made) it,” he said.
The couple, who own the South Pacific Bistro nearby, were expecting a contractor tomorrow to estimate the damage.
The 15-seat bus was towed to a repair facility.
Twin Transit will conduct an investigation, Graichen said.
McNamara said he didn’t know if the driver would be cited.
Plywood now covers the corner of the Hieu Duong and Liu Li's home in Chehalis.
Tags: By Sharyn L. Decker, news reporter