PORT ANGELES — Two couples still are rebuilding two years after a logging bulldozer smashed their homes.
Dan and Mary Davis still can’t live in the house that was destroyed when their neighbor Barry Swegle revved up his huge bulldozer and plowed into it.
Swegle also damaged the house belonging to James and Barbara Porter.
The Davises no longer live in the Gales Addition area east of Port Angeles.
“We hope eventually to move back,” Dan Davis said Friday.
He and his wife, both 76, declined to say much more or to be photographed for this story.
“It’s been really stressful, the way this happened,” he said.
The Porters were lucky, said Barbara. They have been able to stay in their home, although repairs are not complete.
Of course, she added, she and her husband don’t have the money to move.
They’ve had to fix the mess little by little since they live on Social Security and had no insurance.
The Porters — she’s 74; he’s 66 — have fixed the foundation and planted trees to replace those taken out during Swegle’s rampage.
Their grandson built them another shed to replace the one Swegle crushed, but they still have some more to do on it and have yet to be able to replace the lawn mower and tools that were flattened along with the shed.
And then there is the fear.
“Everybody that’s involved is still afraid of Barry,” Barbara Porter said.
“We don’t know what he’s going to do. None of us know how he’s going to react to anything.”
She has known Swegle, who is now 53, since he was a boy.
“He always had problems, but I never expected him to do what he did,” she said.
“I hope that Barry can find some peace in his life,” she added, saying she hasn’t seen him since he got out of prison in December.
Barbara Porter said she is satisfied with the court judgment but, like the Davises, wonders if she and her husband will ever see the money.
“Who knows if we’ll get it or not,” she said.
If it materializes, “it will more than take care of any damage we have,” she said.
“But there’s not enough money to stop you from thinking about a bulldozer.”
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Managing Editor/News Leah Leach can be reached at 360-417-3531 or at leah.leach@peninsuladailynews.com.
