Bulldozer Rampage: Washington Homes Crushed

A man in a bulldozer-like vehicle badly damaged the homes of four people and cut the power to thousands more after a long-running dispute with his neighbours.

Barry Alan Swegle, 51, knocked one of the homes in Washington’s Olympic Peninsula, in Port Angeles off its foundations. An electricity pole was also torn down and a pickup truck destroyed.

Barbara Porter was inside her house when she saw the machine come barreling through a wall.

"You could just hear noise things getting broke up and tore up and pushed into my place," she said.

Ms Porter ran out of the house before she was crushed.

"I knew I had to get out of the house because I was afraid he was going to tear it down, and I don't think I would have lived if I had been in it and he had tore it down," she said.

Keith Haynes, who lives near one of the damaged homes, told the Peninsula Daily News that the man "just went nuts".

"He took a skidder and took out two houses. I mean demolished. It was like a war zone," he said.

Another witness Bobee Ward screamed at Swegle to stop.

"When I'm yelling, 'What are you doing?' He looked right at me. He was just - he was blanked face. That was it. he didn't care," said Mr Ward.

Thousands of people were left without power after the rampage, but within a few hours it had been restored to all but 200 customers, said Clallam County Public Utility District spokesman Mike Howe.

Sheriff’s spokesman Jim Borte said the machine was an International Harvester TD-25, similar to a Caterpillar D-9. The vehicle is believed to have been used for logging.

Swegle is being held over malicious mischief. His mother said she was just grateful that no one was hurt or killed.