FORKS — Cleanup is expected to begin today at the Forks Library after a car crashed into the back wall Monday evening, breaking windows and causing structural damage to the newly renovated building.
The driver, a teenage boy who was not identified because of his age, mistook the gas pedal for the brake and has been cited, according to Forks Police Department.
Neither the driver nor anyone inside the library was injured.
About 20 patrons and three employees were in the library at about 5 p.m. Monday, said Theresa Tetreau, who manages the Forks and Clallam Bay libraries.
“We all heard this really low boom and the sound of shattering glass from the back of the library,” Tetreau said.
Employees ran to the back area, she said, where they found a car had crashed through the wall, caving it in and breaking windows, and pushed a computer table back several feet.
“Two people were at the table. There were no injuries,” she said.
She added that the two people at the table were sitting at the end, away from where the car hit.
An employee called through the window to check on whether the driver was OK.
“He said he was not,” Tetreau said.
Forks police said in a report that a later examination of the driver showed he was not physically injured, only shaken up.
Open Tuesday
The library, which underwent an $847,232 renovation in 2014, was open for its usual business hours Tuesday.
Several parking lot spaces and interior areas near the damaged wall have been blocked off, a support beam temporarily replaced and cleanup and demolition are expected to begin today, Tetreau said.
It was unclear how long it would take to repair or the cost of repairing the damage, she said.
Tetreau said four computers on the table that was hit are out of service, and they have not yet been checked to see if they were damaged.
The driver of the car was an unlicensed, uninsured teenage boy, said Kelsey Pearson, spokeswoman for the Forks police.
His parents did not know he had taken the car, a 1998 Mercury Cougar, Pearson said.
“He was fully cooperative when the police arrived,” she said.
________
Reporter Arwyn Rice can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 5070, or at arice@peninsuladailynews.com.
