At 11:07 a.m. on Jan. 14 the Stanley Police Department responded to a single vehicle crash at a residence on North Franklin Street in Stanley. Stanley resident Orencio Alvarez-Villarreal, 35, was driving a 2005 Chrysler Sebring northbound on North Franklin Street when the vehicle exited the roadway striking a mailbox and drove through neighboring front yards before striking the front porch/deck of a North Franklin residence owned by City Administrator Nicole Pilgrim and her family. Alvarez-Villareal was administered a preliminary breath test on scene that registered a blood alcohol level of 0.27
“We felt the whole house shake. It felt like a door slammed really, really hard,” said Pilgrim who was upstairs at the time of the initial impact. “My son yelled ‘Dad!’ and we both bolted down the steps.” She commented that her and her husband ran to where her son had been sitting on the couch by the window in the living room near the initial impact site. With no injuries reported of the driver or the Pilgrim family, Pilgrim is grateful that her family is safe and added that the outcome could have been very different.
Alvarez-Villareal was booked into the Chippewa County jail for an OWI 1st offense where he is being referred to the Chippewa County DA for criminal damage to property.