The police did not identify the 20-year-old woman or her injured passenger.

01:00 AM EDT on Sunday, July 24, 2005

BY MICHAEL P. McKINNEY
Journal Staff Writer

FALL RIVER -- A 20-year-old Fairhaven, Mass., woman died yesterday after she lost control of the car she was driving down a steep stretch of President Avenue and crashed into parked cars, a utility pole and the porch of the longtime home of two elderly residents.

The driver, whom the police would not identify, was thrown from the silver Honda, the police and witnesses said. She later died at Charlton Memorial Hospital. Her passenger, a Massachusetts woman who appeared to be in her twenties, was also taken to Charlton. The police would not release any more information about her.

The crash happened between 2:30 and 3 a.m. yesterday. Frank Harrington was asleep in the brown, shingled, three-story house at 365/367 President Ave. when the car came to a rest in the front yard. He did not hear it happen, he said, but a neighbor woke him up to tell him. Harrington said the driver had already been taken to the hospital when he came outside.

His sister, Julia Harrington, said she only learned later what had happened.

"At 7 a.m.," she said, "my brother told me that the house had been hit."

A piece of a wooden utility pole with an attached yellow sign bearing the word "school" lay off to the side of the road. What used to be wooden steps leading up to the Harringtons' porch was now a scattered jumble of broken planks amid greenery. Small shards of glass were scattered across part of the porch.

But those things can be replaced.

"My heart goes out to the family" of the woman who died, said Ronnie Arruda, a next-door neighbor to the Harringtons. "I mean, no one got hurt but them . . . That's a parent's worst nightmare."

Lee Blair, who lives on the third floor at 385 President Ave., said his pickup was among the vehicles damaged and showed photos he said were of the crash scene. Blair compared the sound that morning to thunder. He and others said houses shook.

"I heard a big bang at about 2:30," said Blair. He said the scene outside was a "nightmare" and called what happened a tragedy.

The police offered no word as to what caused the crash. A state police accident reconstruction team was called in, according to Fall River Lt. Robert Flynn.

President Avenue is in an area of the city well known for its steep pitch.