Morning excitement

I was sitting in the living room when I heard eeeeeeeeee BOOM, windows rattling and all. Rob emerged from the shower wondering if a car had crashed into our house.

Close.

A car had crashed into the fire hydrant on the corner, next door to our house, and was now upside down in the neighbors' rosebushes. Where the hydrant had been was a two-story fountain about five feet in diameter. By the time I got there, less than a minute after the noise, the car was empty. Across the street a bicyclist stood staring at this tableau and talking on his cellphone. I saw a figure look around the neighbors' open backyard gate and vanish again. Shortly afterward a slender black man reached into the car, grabbed a small bag, and walked calmly away down the street with a woman beside him. Witnesses said the car had been going eastward on Homestead very very fast, weaving, and had tried to take the turn onto my street at an impossible speed. Police arrived, took witness statements, and found the driver and passenger. Firemen got the water shut off. I got to meet several of my neighbors for the first time. (Not the occupants of the house. They weren't there. I wonder what they're going to think when they get home.)

This was impressive in a lot of ways:
1) The police arrived very fast. (I learned later that they were already chasing that car.)
2) That hydrant saved the house.
3) A fire hydrant can make a really big hole in the front of a car. And flip it, and spin it so it's backwards (nose pointing back the way it came).
4) The occupants of the car walked away.
5) The police found them anyway.
6) We have some serious water pressure, yo.

I bet the owner of that car is going to miss it.