Car destroys Chamber of Commerce building

A car that crashed into the Lebanon Chamber of Commerce, 1040 S. Park St., at 2:21 a.m. Wednesday, March 1, left a gaping hole in the building, effectively shutting down business from the office.

Executive Director Rebecca Grizzle said a witness saw two cars that appeared to be drag racing at the time of the incident.

Servco staff clean debris from the building. Photo by Sarah Brown

“One of the cars lost control coming around the corner,” Grizzle said.

Grizzle posted on social media a three-second video taken from a camera on the building.

“You can see in the video he’s already turning and his headlights are towards Canaga (tire shop) when the rear of the car hit and punched a hole through the building and then the car continued to spin and then the front of the car hit the front door of the office.”

The witness told Grizzle the suspect vehicle is a light colored SUV and the other vehicle involved is a silver car.

“The silver car sped off and then the silver car came back and drove slowly to check out the damage after that,” Grizzle said.

The cinder block building is “off kilter,” and staff will not be working out of the office until a structural engineer says it’s safe to do so, Grizzle said.

Police are investigating the incident.