A Niu Valley family was shaken yesterday when a 3 1/2-foot boulder came crashing down from the hillside above their residence, crushing their fence and scraping the side of their house.

No one was injured at the home in the 6000 block of Haleola Street, but homeowner Gary Morita, 58, was inside the bedroom and called his daughter on the phone in a panic.

"At first I didn't understand," Traci Morita, his daughter, said. "He explained that he was sleeping and he woke up to ... what he described as a ripping noise."

When she arrived, the boulder was nestled in the cracked sidewalk in front of the garage, lying among chunks of concrete wall and metal rebars.

Morita said her father and mother live at the home, although her mother was out yesterday morning. Her parents are remodeling the kitchen and family room of the house, where they have lived for 15 years.

Justo Olipares, of Kane'ohe, was helping clean a friend's home several houses down the street when he heard a loud cracking sound.

He ran outside to see the the boulder sitting in the sidewalk and puffs of dust in the air.

"I just heard a noise like something bouncing, stone on stone," he said. "Boom, boom, boom, boom."

It appears the boulder skipped over a metal fence shielding the back of the Moritas' property, ostensibly from rockslides.

It scraped a hole in the side of the house below the bedroom where Gary Morita was standing, tore a hole in a path around the house, crushed several plants, went through a wood fence and concrete wall and landed in the sidewalk.

Traci Morita said her father was shaken by what happened.

"I was just glad that he was OK, but I think he's understandably stressed about the damage and what's going to happen next," she said. "I'm really thankful that nobody got hurt, because it could have been easily 4 feet to the left and it could have broken down the whole side of the house."

Yesterday afternoon, the city Department of Facility Maintenance moved the boulder to the end of Haleola Street and set barricades around the crater in the sidewalk.

Before that, neighbors stood around the boulder taking pictures.

Dora Nakamaru, who has lived on Haleola Street for more than 40 years, said a friend in Seattle e-mailed her after seeing her street in the news that morning.

"It's kind of scary," she said. "I feel bad for those people."

"This is the first time I've heard of anything falling down," she said. "You don't hear about this happening in Niu Valley."