What Matthew Sobecki heard at 7 a.m. Wednesday taught him lightning can strike twice -- at least at 213 North St. "I heard an explosion," Sobecki said. "It sounded like a drawn-out thunder and I knew. I knew someone had hit my car." Looking outside, Sobecki saw that both of his cars and a neighbor's car were mangled and resting in his front yard instead of on North Street where they had been parked the night before. The cars had been pushed over the curb and at least 10 feet into the yards because of a youngster's joy ride, police said. The spectacular crash was disturbing, but not new to Sobecki. "I had a car that was hit here once before," Sobecki said. "In 1996, a drunken driver hit one of my cars," said Sobecki, a New Kensington VFD No. 1 volunteer fire captain. "Now this." Police Sgt. James Klein said a 15-year-old girl was driving her mother's Jeep Cherokee at a high rate of speed down North Street near the municipal line with Arnold. Klein declined to identify the Jeep's owner because that could identify the girl, who had not been seen Wednesday after the crash. Because an investigation is under way, police declined to estimate how fast the SUV was moving when it hit the cars like a sledgehammer into a ripe pumpkin. "I've heard it was at least 60 miles an hour," said Sobecki. "If they were going that fast, they had to go airborne. Look at the street. You are bounced into the air at much less (speed) than that," he said. North Street is posted at 25 mph. The Jeep likely bounced off the pavement before it apparently slammed into a curb and ricocheted across the street into the three parked cars. Sobecki said the SUV finally stopped in the middle of Leishman Avenue about a half-block away. The underage driver and her seven passengers -- ages 10 to 16 -- all ran away. Westmoreland County 911 dispatchers soon started to get phone calls. The first call for help was for a 12-year-old Kenneth Avenue boy who had facial injuries. Within five minutes someone called for a girl with a head injury and another person hurt in a crash. Medics found five of the passengers in that vicinity, also along Kenneth Avenue. Eventually, a girl and a boy were flown to a Pittsburgh hospital. All of the others were taken to hospitals except for the driver. Klein said police are concerned she may be injured. The crash demolished Sobecki's Chrysler Sebring, his pride and joy, along with his family's Hyundai Sonata. The collision also damaged an elderly neighbor's car. "They can be replaced," he said, glad that no one died.

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