At first, Charlotte Newhard thought a large beach ball was rolling down North Main Street. As it got closer, however, she realized the object headed in her direction was definitely not a toy.

Minutes before, the ball — a wrecking ball estimated to weigh in at between 1,500 and 2,000 pounds — had been attached to a crane, demolishing brick planters and pavers on the East College Street side of Pelletier Library on the Allegheny College campus. Minutes later, at approximately 9:45 a.m. Monday, it was at rest, lodged in the trunk of a car at the intersection of North Main and Randolph streets after apparently becoming dislodged from its cable.

That driver didn’t see it coming. “I was in my car at the red light,” Allegheny junior Alex Habay, 20, recalled Monday night. “All of a sudden the back windshield exploded and I hit the car in front of me. I thought a car hit the back of me, but when I turned around, I couldn’t see anything.”

The force of the impact propelled Habay’s vehicle 22 feet forward, striking the rear of a car driven by Junior White, 67, of Meadville, and pushing it into the rear of a car driven by David Bish, 46, also of Meadville. The fourth car waiting for the light to change, a Meadville Police Department patrol car driven by Patrolman Brian Joseph, escaped becoming the 14th vehicle involved in the crash when Bish brought his car to a stop 1.5 inches from the patrol car’s rear bumper, Joseph said Monday afternoon.

By the time it came to rest, the ball had traveled 7/10ths of a mile — 3,642 feet, to be exact — along a path dropping approximately 130 feet in elevation. Along the way, it hit eight parked vehicles, sideswiped Newhard’s van and hit another parked vehicle before lodging itself in Habay’s trunk.



It sounded like an explosion

“I heard a large crash, something like an explosion,” Patrolman Joseph recalled. Getting out of his cruiser, “the guy behind me said he was hit by another vehicle and the guy behind him said he was hit by another vehicle,” Joseph said. “I could see pieces from some kind of accident behind the third vehicle, but I couldn’t see any kind of car that had caused the collision. I walked back and that’s when I see probably a 1,500-pound wrecking ball sitting in the back of a Ford Taurus.” He relayed that information to Habay, who was sitting at the wheel of the Taurus. Then he heard people screaming that the ball had rolled all the way down North Main.

Sitting in The Pampered Palate on the southwest corner of the intersection, Carol Lilly and a group of friends heard the crash and rushed outside.

“I’m so thankful the gas tank didn’t explode,” Lilly said. “We thought there was something in his trunk that exploded. The fender was off — and the trunk instantly went up — but you couldn’t see what hit him or what might have exploded.”

She wasn’t the only one feeling thankful. “We felt good all day that nothing serious happened to us,” said Newhard. With her sister in the passenger seat, she had been northbound approaching East Henry Street when the ball veered out of the southbound lane, where it had traveled since beginning its descent, and headed in her direction. “Nothing was coming down the hill, so I pulled over into the other lane,” Newhard continued. Even though the ball broke the rear passenger-side wheel and scratched the van as it passed by, “We’re counting our blessings,” she said.



A path of damaged vehicles

Damaged vehicles, chipped curbs and a faint path on the roadway marked the wrecking ball’s progress from beginning to end. After encountering Newhard’s van, it continued downhill in the northbound lane, returning to the southbound side of the roadway only after passing through the Baldwin Street intersection.

At the top of the hill, Hartstown resident Jestina Klink was helping out with the annual Creating Landscapes program on the Allegheny campus when she went out to her car to get a snack for one of the kids. She discovered that the rear driver’s side door was smashed and the rear bumper and tail light cracked. “There was a whole group of people standing around and they told me what happened,” she said.

For those who returning to their vehicles after the crowd dispersed, Allegheny College sent out a broadcast e-mail to staff members and put information sheets on each damaged car about how to contact the contractors.

As part of a $4.5-million project that will update both the library’s interior and exterior, the brick planters and paving are being removed and will be replaced with grass and two sidewalks leading into the building. The general contractor for the project is Associated Contractors of Conneaut Lake Inc.; Kebert Construction is a subcontractor.

Habay and White were transported to Meadville Medical Center for treatment and later released.

A participant in Allegheny’s Davies Leader program who is spending the summer working at Meadville YMCA, Habay made it to work — eventually. “I feel all right,” he said — aside from a bit of a headache and a sore back and neck.

Robbie Boring, 27, of Meadville, an employee of Kebert Construction Co., was injured when he attempted to stop the wrecking ball by throwing bricks in its path, Joseph said. The ball apparently broke loose from its cable while in motion, according to Joseph. Boring was also transported to MMC, where he was released after treatment.

“It’s fortunate that no one was seriously injured,” Larry Lee, associate vice president for finance and planning at Allegheny, said Monday afternoon.

“We’re just lucky that the damage was just to some property that can be replaced,” Meadville City Manager Joe Chriest agreed.

Word of the incident traveled fast. Jeff McGreary, a 1988 Allegheny graduate who is now executive vice president of Allied Insurance Brokers in Pittsburgh, a company that specializes in insuring construction cranes, called the Tribune office Monday afternoon with a couple of questions about an Internet report about the incident.

“This is the first time I have ever seen a claim such as this,” said McGreary, who has been in the business for more than 15 years. “It’s very unusual to have a crane ball come unhooked. Usually there is a safety cable in place — that’s why it’s odd that you see it snap.”

Larry Kebert, owner of Kebert Construction, didn’t respond to requests for information. It was uncertain Monday whether he or his company would face any legal repercussions for the incident.



Mary Spicer can be reached at 724-6370 or by e-mail at mspicer@meadvilletribune.com.