It was a chaotic Saturday afternoon for folks in a south Redmond neighborhood after an allegedly drunk driver lost control of his vehicle, smashed through a fence and crashed into and destroyed a fire hydrant, causing flooding and damage to surrounding homes.

Redmond Police Lt. Eric Beckwith said the crash, which police responded to near the intersection of SW Wickiup Avenue and  SW 28th Court at around 3:21, was caused by Cody Kelly, 32, of Redmond, who was allegedly intoxicated when he crashed while speeding through the neighborhood.

Beckwith said Kelly was taken to the Deschutes County Adult Jail on charges of driving under the influence of intoxicants, reckless driving, reckless endangerment and two counts of second-degree criminal mischief.

“The DUI crash did involve a fire hydrant which resulted in water flooding multiple homes and causing damage in that area,” Beckwith said. “We do know that a bystander used a fire extinguisher for some reason but we can’t confirm that there was an active fire or the vehicle was on fire in any capacity. So, that is a little bit unknown to us.”

Beckwith said the crash disrupted a six-year-old’s birthday party nearby in addition to causing damage to homes.

“We would just like to remind people that alcohol and other substances impair driving. We would want people to please have a plan, other than driving, when you are consuming impairing substances,” Beckwith said.

A resident of the neighborhood, Audrey Haugan, heard the commotion while sitting in her kitchen in her home on SW 28th Court.

Haugan said it was quite the ordeal.

“It sounded like a car crash. Like two cars crashing, but what I was hearing I guess was my fence coming down and him crashing into the fire hydrant. And his car flipped. I just came out my front door and saw the car upside down and then it started on fire,” Haugan said. “Then the fire hydrant was completely knocked over and all of that water was pouring into my backyard. And flooding my entire backyard. But it also flooded my neighbor’s house. The water was just pouring into his garage, and they weren’t home.”

Haugan said when she came out of her house and saw the car flipped, she couldn’t see anyone inside because all of the airbags had deployed. Fortunately, the neighbors were able to get the door open and the driver (kelly) was able to crawl out of the car seemingly unscathed.

“The whole street was flooded. It was crazy. It was crazy chaos for sure…the cool thing was nobody was hurt, including him (Kelly), and I would have thought he would be seriously injured,” Haugan said.

In other crash news, a large remote controlled airplane crashed, causing a 3-acre brush fire in a field near the Negus Transfer Station & Recycling Center on Sunday at around 12:30, said fire marshall Tom Mooney of Redmond Fire and Rescue.

“Basically what happened is, it has a little lithium ion battery back in it that exploded and that caught the grass on fire and it spread pretty quick,” Mooney said. “It kept itself contained to the grass and a few junipers and we got on it pretty quickly.”

Mooney said brush fires caused by crashing remote controlled airplanes is a rarity in Redmond. 

“It doesn’t happen very often,” Mooney said laughing.