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Vehicles strike her house 7 times in 11 years

By By Kim Wilmath, Times Staff Writer
In print: Thursday, September 18, 2008

Virginia Zinn’s St. Petersburg home is built directly on Ninth Place S in Campbell Park. The house has been struck several times in the 11 years she has lived there. Wednesday morning, a school bus struck the overhanging roof of the house.
	[MARTHA RIAL | Times]

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ST. PETERSBURG — Before dawn on Wednesday, Virginia Zinn heard a crash. She sighed, peeked out the door and saw a familiar scene.

Here we go again, she thought.

For at least the seventh time, a vehicle crashed into Zinn's home on 12th Street S. This time it was a school bus. At 6 a.m.

The bus, heading west on Ninth Place S — an unpaved 10-foot-wide alley a toe from Zinn's place — struck the overhanging roof of her home as it tried to turn onto 12th Street S. Police estimated the damage at about $800, to be paid by the school district.

It's nothing new for Zinn. She's had garbage trucks, commercial vehicles and semitrailers plow into the side of her home in the 11 years she has lived there. Since Wednesday's accident, caulk from past repairs has flaked off. Naked wood peeks from under several repainted coats of beige. Nails jut out of a beam that fell on a white plastic chair on her back porch — which she never sits in.

In fact, the 40-year-old blind woman rarely goes out her back door. A few months ago, her dog, Lucky, made that mistake for the last time. A Jeep Cherokee went down the dirt alley too fast and hit Lucky. Nowadays, Zinn keeps her 2-year-old Pekingese, Zappa, at the end of long green twine in the fenced front yard.

"A lot of cars fly through here like they're in a derby or something," Zinn said. "It's just a tight, tight squeeze."

No kids were on board Wednesdays' bus, and the driver, Marco Santiago, 60, will not be cited. He used the alley because he missed his turn and was trying to go around the block, a school district spokeswoman said.

It takes about five steps to cross the alley, starting with your heels against the side of Zinn's house and ending with toes against a chain-link fence across the way. Mike Frederick, St. Petersburg's manager of neighborhood transportation, said it's one of thousands of alley segments in the city. Frederick said 1,088 miles of streets and roads in St. Petersburg include 131 miles of unpaved alleys, and no homeowners have ever complained about being hit by vehicles.

Still, Frederick said if time and weather caused Ninth Place S to impede onto Zinn's property line, the city could more clearly mark the alley.

But Zinn said she wants the city to close the alley. It's just not wide enough for traffic, especially trucks, she said.

"I'm really getting tired of it," she said. "Even if I move, someone else will come along, and it will still be a reoccurring problem."

And even if she could afford to move, Zinn said, she probably wouldn't. She can see only light and shadows and is used to sliding her hand across the big fish tank to let her know when she's reached the living room. And she knows how many turns to take from her bedroom to the kitchen.

Moments before Wednesday's big boom, Zinn wondered if that familiarity was worth it.

"I was just laying there thinking about how many times the house has been hit, I swear," Zinn said. "And then I heard it. Am I psychic or what?"