PORT ANGELES — Onlookers began lining up “bumper-to-bumper,” as one neighbor described it, last week to catch a glimpse and a quick photo of the destruction wrought from a bulldozer rampage that damaged several homes and other property in Gales Addition.
“For a week, it’s been constant,” said Barbara Porter, whose home was one of four damaged in the bulldozer rampage.
“People taking pictures and yelling at you — it’s been hard.”
Porter and her husband, James, live on Pioneer Road in Gales Addition, just south of Barry Swegle, the 51-year-old man who is charged with boarding his logging bulldozer at about 11:30 a.m. May 10 and plowing through neighbors’ properties in a 10- to 15-minute spree of destruction that has since garnered international attention.
The Clallam County Sheriff’s Office estimated that more than $300,000 worth of damage was done when the bulldozer trampled homes, outbuildings, a Ford F-250 pickup truck, a riding lawn mower, a boat and other property, and knocked down a power pole, which cut electrical power to thousands of people.
“It’s been bumper-to-bumper [most of this past] week,” Porter said.
The tool allegedly used during the attack, however, has been taken out of the public eye after sheriff’s deputies seized it as evidence last week.
“You could say it’s been impounded,” Chief Criminal Sheriff’s Deputy Ron Cameron said Friday.
Cameron said the bulldozer eventually could be auctioned off and the money turned over to the county, though he said deciding what to do with the machine is still a long way off.
The bulldozer is evidence in the case against Swegle, who has pleaded not guilty to nine charges.
Swegle, arrested without incident soon after the rampage when law enforcement officers caught up with him on the bulldozer, remained in the Clallam County jail Saturday in lieu of a $1 million bond.
News of the attack has reached as far as New Zealand and Malaysia, according to The Seattle Times and other media.
A Peninsula Daily News editor heard a news report in Spanish on a radio station while visiting Guadalajara, Mexico, on the day of the incident.
And the attack inspired an animated re-enactment produced by a Taiwanese production company.
The video, posted to www.youtube.com on Tuesday, had 3,813 views as of Saturday.
Porter, who has been interviewed both on KCPQ Channel 13 and a radio station based in Australia, said passers-by typically have been forward in approaching her, especially if she’s outside her home.
“People are just curious,” Porter said.
“[They] can’t think that somebody can take a bulldozer through homes and tear them up.”
A stranger even offered Porter $150,000 for her home, saying he was concerned about her safety and wanted to take the house off her hands.
Porter declined the offer for her house, which sustained minor damaged after the bulldozer pushed a mobile home owned by neighbor Dan Davis off its foundation and into Porter’s.
Davis, 74, whose home on Ryan Road was severally damaged in the attack — which focused on his property — said a documentary producer from ABC News’ Los Angeles bureau wants to meet with him Monday to talk about the rampage for a television news program.
“I want to show the complete story of what happened,” said Davis.
Davis has said his disagreement with Swegle over a fence Davis had erected on his own property led to the bulldozer rampage.
Davis’ truck still sits on the property at the intersection of Baker Street and Pioneer Road where the mobile home once stood, a mangled reminder of the destruction that has also become an attraction of its own.
David G. Sellars, who lives a few blocks away from Davis’ property, said the days after the rampage were filled with people stopping along Baker Street to take pictures of friends and family in front of the remnants of Davis’ truck and mobile home.
“Last week, for the first four or five days after it happened, sometimes there were easily a dozen or more [cars],” said Sellars, who writes a column for the Peninsula Daily News.
Sellars, who has lived in the area for the past 10 years, said the scene brought to mind one of the world’s most famous amusement parks.
“It was the biggest thing going on for the weekend. They should have been selling tickets,” Sellars said.
“A ticket to Disneyland wouldn’t have commanded any more money.”
________
Reporter Jeremy Schwartz can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 5074, or at jschwartz@peninsuladailynews.com.
