Jared Soares | The Roanoke Times

Sybil Philpott's home on Moorman Avenue Northwest in Roanoke was struck during a drive-by shooting. She has lived in the house since 1994, when it was built by Habitat for Humanity. No one inside was injured.

Had the shooter waited a second longer, or pointed the gun at a slightly different angle, Sybil Philpott would be at work today instead of staying home to deal with her flooded Roanoke house.

But one of the two rounds that hit her house in the 2000 block of Moorman Avenue Northwest during a drive-by shooting Tuesday night blasted through a window and a closet door. It hit a water pipe less than an inch round, sending a rush of water onto the floor.

Philpott is thankful that her 20-year-old son and his cousin, who were sitting on the porch, weren't injured. Philpott, 47, was shopping at Wal-Mart when the shooting happened.

"Imagine what that bullet would have done to one of us," she said.

But she can't get over the ignorance and recklessness that's costing her and her insurance company an untold amount of money.

"All this because of what they're doing out there on the street," Philpott said Thursday while surveying the damage in her bedroom.

No one has been charged with shooting at Philpott's house, and police are still investigating.

The Moorman shooting was followed just 20 minutes later by a shooting in Salem that injured a man, and then by a chase that damaged a storage building and house.

Police have linked the Salem shooting and the chase and said the vehicle description in the Moorman shooting matched the description in the other incidents.

The bullet that hit the water pipe in Philpott's house continued through the closet wall and into her bedroom in the back of the house. It finally stopped after lodging in her dresser.

The second bullet did less damage. It put a hole in the yellow siding and struck a cardboard box in the living room.

Philpott had to rip up the carpet in the living room and bedroom and the linoleum in the kitchen so the wet plywood underneath could dry.

A Roanoke police officer who investigated the shooting borrowed tools from a neighbor to shut off the water, but not before it made its way into the air and heating ducts and soaked boxes in the closet.

"I just can't understand it," Philpott said. "Why one bullet can tear up a house like that."

She has lived in the house since 1994, when it was built by Habitat for Humanity. "Thank God for my house," she said. "But I want to feel safe in my house."

The shooting has left Philpott shaken up and her life in disarray.

Philpott is taking more than a week off work from Carilion Roanoke Memorial Hospital, where she is a clinical secretary.

And she's been sleeping on the couch because her box spring and mattress are being stored on the front porch, along with the damaged dresser, while the floor dries.

Philpott said that neither her son nor his cousin knew the four people who drove by the house in the burgundy Ford Taurus.

Police have said the car matches the description of one involved in a shooting at Salem Commons apartments at 8:40 p.m., about 20 minutes after the shooting on Moorman.

About an hour after the Salem shooting, Roanoke police saw a burgundy Ford Taurus and chased it through Northwest Roanoke. It hit two buildings before it crashed.

Police arrested Darrin James Lester, 20, of Radford at the scene of the crash and charged him with malicious wounding in the Salem shooting. The driver got away but was arrested Wednesday.

Roanoke police charged Demetrius Ronell Cooper, 18, of Roanoke, with eluding police in connection with the chase.

Salem police also charged Cooper with malicious wounding, use of a firearm in commission of a felony, and shooting into an occupied dwelling. The latter charge was placed because one of the rounds fired in the parking lot of Salem Commons apartments hit a building.