PHOTO BY JIM KNOWLES

The drunk driver flew off the road and knocked Dorothy Ciraulo’s car from her driveway to the front porch.

By Jim Knowles

San Leandro Times

Dorothy Ciraulo has lived on Monterey Boulevard since the house was brand new but she’s never had a night like last Saturday.

“I was never so scared in my entire life,” Ciraulo said. “There’s nothing more frightening than a car crashing through your house at night.”

Though the car didn’t go through the house, it sounded like it. A drunk driver speeding down Monterey at 10 p.m. hit a pickup truck parked on the street and then slammed into Ciraulo’s car in her driveway and knocked it onto her front porch.

The plants and front porch railing are wiped out, and the wall of the house between the porch and garage is knocked off its hinges.

“That was my little car. I don’t drive anymore but I wash that car every week,” Ciraulo said.

The driver of the car that caused the damage, a 1999 Lexus, took off but police caught up with him a couple of blocks away. They followed the trail of leaking fluid down the street and around the corner on Carmel Way, according to Lt. Mike Sobek of the San Leandro police.

The driver was arrested for driving under the influence, and hit and run, and the passenger in the car was arrested for being under the influence, Sobek said.

“It scared the hell out of everybody in the neighborhood,” said Ciraulo’s son Mark Ciraulo who came to the house as soon as he heard what happened.

Mark Ciraulo is a contractor, so he’s helping his mom fix the house, or he will as soon as the insurance adjuster arrives. He grew up in the house with his brother and sister and they all went to Monroe Elementary School just down the street.

“Whoever did that has no business driving,” Dorothy Ciraulo said. “I would never allow my kids to do that.”