Woman dies, home devastated in Elyria Township crash

ELYRIA TWP. — An Elyria woman is dead following a single-car crash into an Elyria Township home early Friday. Holly Houle, 46, was driving a 2005 Ford 500 south on West Ridge Road, just north of state Route 113. The car went off the side of the road and struck a house at about 2 a.m. Friday. Homeowners Linda and Bryan Baus are still dealing with the shock of it all. "If the circumstances would not have been what they were, we would not be having this conversation," Bryan Baus said. Linda Baus was not on the couch in her family room, where she usually slept because of her bad back. She wasn't there because she had been to a concert at Blossom Music Center, a first for her. She's not a country music fan but she went to the concert with her cousin for fun. She's not usually up that late, but she was hungry. She scrounged up half a sandwich with her faithful companion, Sophie the dog, before the pair made the unusual decision to head up to bed. It was about 1:30 a.m. Fifteen minutes later, an explosion. Their security alarms started blaring. Bryan Baus immediately awoke and the pair made their way downstairs, Bryan was armed, not knowing what to expect. At the foot of the stairs, they looked into the two-story family room at a pile of rubble from the top of the ceiling where the chimney started to the middle of the floor. The wall of rocks, stone and chunks of quartz had crumbled to a pile, crushing the couch where Linda and Sophie had been just minutes earlier. Their enormous wooden mantle, screwed into the masonry and anchored into the studs to withstand time and storms,had been tossed like a toy in the pile. Dust rising from the rubble looked like steam. Maybe a gas leak? At first, they thought the explosion had been caused by gas logs in the fireplace. Then Bryan Baus opened the front door and found car parts on the porch. Outside they saw a car smashed and still upside down where it had flung itself into the chimney at the north end of their home. Smoke was coming from the vehicle. There was a woman still inside. Police and rescue workers arrived quickly but the driver, Houle, was in critical condition. She was taken to the hospital and died of her injuries. According to a news release from the State Highway Patrol, The crash remains under investigation, but alcohol and excessive speed are believed to be factors. Investigators were in the yard for a long time, trying to re-create the conditions. They were stumped, Bryan Baus said, by the lack of tire tracks. "They said she had went at least 175 feet through the air, flipping end over end," Bryan Baus said he was told. Multiple agencies responded to the wreck, as well as the Lorain County Technical Rescue Response Team, which worked to secure the structure of the house that sustained "severe damage," in the crash, the Elyria Township Fire Department said. After all the lights and sirens and shock wore away in the faint light of day, there are still signs everywhere. Shattered glass litters the manicured flower beds Linda enjoys tending. A rotor lies in front of a living room window. The entire car exhaust system was found on the roof. A black plastic bag in the front yard holds papers the Baus family gathered from the vehicle, school fundraisers for a child. Though Houle's car didn't breach the interior of the home, her headlight was found in the middle of the family room floor. 'It came down the chimney," Linda Baus said, staring at the ruins. "Just 15 minutes before, I was sitting there. Right. There." "I'm not worried about this," she said. "This is just — it's just things. We've been together since we were 18, my husband and I. ... Things can be replaced. But people can't. I keep thinking about her family," Linda Baus said. "The thought of my husband coming down and finding me and Sophie under all that — I'm having a very hard time with that. And I keep thinking of that woman's family," she said again. It isn't the first time a car has hit the Baus house. This makes four times, Bryan Baus said. A representative at the State Highway Patrol's Elyria Post said that the post did not have any records of previous crashes at the home, but the available records only go back seven years. "We're very lucky to be alive," Linda Baus said. Then they correct themselves. "It's not luck. It's God," Bryan Baus said. Reporters Vince Guerrieri and Owen MacMillan contributed to this report. Contact Rini Jeffers at rinijeffers@gmail.com.