This Center Township duplex apartment was damaged Monday when it was hit by a car about 4:30 a.m. Monday. The apartment at Arthur Drive is owned by Larry Blain, whose wife said the damage will be repaired.

CENTER TWP — A duplex apartment damaged early Monday morning by a runaway car will be rebuilt. The woman displaced by the crash plans to stay with family members and is “taking it day by day.”

“We haven’t really decided too much how we’re doing,” said Barbara Kroh, the tenant at 100-C Arthur Drive, a duplex-style apartment that was heavily damaged when it was hit by a car at about 4:30 a.m. Monday.

“It was a long, rough night. But we’re going to take it day by day,” Kroh said, referring to her niece, Melody Cunningham, who also was in the apartment at the time of the cash. Cunningham, who was visiting from Maryland, is returning home today, Kroh said.

The duplex-style apartment is owned by Larry Blain, who was not available this morning. However, his wife said the apartment would be rebuilt.

She said engineers had not yet looked at the damage caused by the wreck, but she did not believe the structure would have to be torn down. She was thankful that no one inside the duplex was injured in the crash.

“A building can be rebuilt,” said the woman, who declined to give her name. “We’re just glad no one inside was hurt.”

Kroh, who said she spent Monday night in a motel and would be staying with family members for the time being, said the crash impact woke her and Cunningham. Both were in bed at the time of the crash and went next door to the apartment of Jane and Charles Williams, who also had been awoken by the sound of the impact.

The vehicle, driven by Michael E. Mazurek, 49, of Summit Township, went off Route 308 northbound and about 400 feet down a steep hill. It went airborne and slammed into the apartment’s roof, destroying a wooden deck and punching holes in the building’s western wall near Kroh’s kitchen window and the door leading to the apartment’s deck.

Williams said the impact was “just a boom,” and decimated Kroh’s kitchen.

Drivers’ speed along that downhill stretch of Route 308 is a big concern for Williams, who said a similar incident had previously occurred in that area, although she wasn’t sure when. She said Monday’s crash wrecked Kroh’s apartment.

“Some of her dishes are in (the living room) by her rocking chair,” Williams said. “The good Lord was watching over us, I swear.”

Mazurek, who was critically injured in the crash, was flown Monday to Allegheny General Hospital. No information about his condition was available this morning.

Kroh said she was hoping to hear good news about Mazurek’s condition.

“We haven’t heard anything at all about the fella who was driving the car,” she said, “and we certainly have him in our thoughts and hope everything is all right with him.”

State police this morning said they suspect alcohol was a factor in the crash. Drunken driving charges against Mazurek are pending results of toxicology tests.

Mazurek already is facing a preliminary hearing next month stemming from a DUI arrest April 9 in Butler. City police said his blood-alcohol level was 0.174 percent — more than double the state’s 0.08 percent legal limit — when he was stopped.