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UPDATE: Car Crashes into Home, People Inside Car Flee

WILKES-BARRE — Police are looking for people who ran off after their car smashed into a house in Wilkes-Barre early Monday morning. The damage to that hom...

WILKES-BARRE -- Police are looking for people who ran off after their car smashed into a house in Wilkes-Barre early Monday morning.

The damage to that home is minor but the woman who lives inside says this is the second time in about a year that her SUV parked along South Main Street has been mangled by a hit-and-run driver.

Skid marks show the path of an out-of-control car that ripped bark off a tree, smashed the front end of an SUV, and bumped into Georgeann Smith's front porch along South Main Street in Wilkes-Barre.

"I was jolted out of my sleep."

The car came crashing through around 1 a.m. Monday waking up a lot of people who live along the busy street. But instead of calling for help neighbors say the people inside the car that had just wrecked ran off.

"I came outside and I seen four people running, three or four people, running across the street," said Erica Germhart.

Georgeann Smith says she's both angry and worried about the people in the car that took off.

"At least one of them I'm sure had to have gotten injured in that vehicle. I'm more angry at the situation, you know, that this is allowed to happen here."

The police reports and insurance claims are nothing new; Smith says this is the second time her SUV parked outside her home on South Main Street was smashed by a hit-and-run driver.

Last year someone sideswiped her SUV and two other cars causing thousands of dollars' worth of damage.

"It's normal for the cars to hit almost once a month, twice a month."

Smith says she and other neighbors have asked Wilkes-Barre officials years ago for a stop sign or a city surveillance camera to keep an eye on this busy stretch of South Main Street but nothing has changed.

"There's nothing to slow them down, all the way from St. Mary's cemetery, there's a red light to Blackman Street, there's nothing. It's like a freeway here."

The city has not said if any safety upgrades along that stretch of South Main Street are being considered.

The people in the car that wrecked are on the run and it's unclear what caused the crash or if anyone in that car was hurt.

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