All survive 5-car smashup
CHARLES H. FEATHERSTONE | Hagadone News Network | UPDATED 5 years AGO
A Moses Lake firefighter cleans up after a major accident Thursday afternoon in the southbound lanes of SR-17 at the intersection with Yonezawa Boulevard in Moses Lake.
Charles H. Featherstone/Columbia Basin Herald
MOSES LAKE — A driver of a 2004 Chevrolet Equinox lost control of her vehicle near the intersection of state Route 17 and Yonezawa Boulevard, flipping the car, hitting several other vehicles waiting at a stoplight, and causing a five-car pileup that snarled traffic for over an hour.
Remarkably, no one was seriously injured in the accident, according to Washington State Trooper Jeremy Weber.
“They were all wearing their seat belts,” Weber said.
According to the Washington State Patrol, Deborah Landrum, 56, of Moses Lake, was headed south on SR-17 at a little before 3 p.m. when she hit the concrete barrier separating the north and southbound lanes and flipping her Chevrolet Equinox over.
Landrum’s upside-down vehicle then crashed into a 2018 Nissan Murano driven by Christopher Blessing, 66, and a 2003 Mitsubishi Eclipse driven by Francisco Illan, 57, of Othello. Both cars were stopped at a red light in the left-hand lane, according to the WSP report.
However, the force of the collision pushed the Murano into a 2013 People For People Chevrolet Express van driven by Justin Warren, 50, of Moses Lake, and the Eclipse into a 2009 Nissan Altima driven by Lourdes Silva Castro, 30, of Othello.
Landrum, along with 6-year-old Yaremi Ochoa and 14-month-old Camila Ochoa – both passengers in the Eclipse – was transported to Samaritan Hospital in Moses Lake.
Neither alcohol nor drugs were involved in the accident, and the cause is still under investigation, according to the Washington State Patrol.
Charles H. Featherstone can be reached at cfeatherstone@columbiabasinherald.com.
ARTICLES BY CHARLES H. FEATHERSTONE
Potato prices up, sales down for first quarter 2023
DENVER — The value of grocery store potato sales rose 16% during the first three months of 2023 as the total volume of sales fell by 4.4%, according to a press release from PotatoesUSA, the national marketing board representing U.S. potato growers. The dollar value of all categories of U.S. potato products for the first quarter of 2023 was $4.2 billion, up from $3.6 billion for the first three months of 2022. However, the total volume of potato sales fell to 1.77 billion pounds in the first quarter of 2023 compared with 1.85 billion pounds during the same period of 2022, the press release noted. However, total grocery store potato sales for the first quarter of 2023 are still above the 1.74 billion pounds sold during the first three months of 2019 – a year before the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, the press release said.
WSU Lind Dryland Research Station welcomes new director
LIND — Washington State University soil scientist and wheat breeder Mike Pumphrey was a bit dejected as he stood in front of some thin test squares of stunted, somewhat scraggly spring wheat at the university’s Lind Dryland Research Station. “As you can see, the spring wheat is having a pretty tough go of it this year,” he said. “It’s a little discouraging to stand in front of plots that are going to yield maybe about seven bushels per acre. Or something like that.” Barely two inches of rain have fallen at the station since the beginning of March, according to station records. Pumphrey, speaking to a crowd of wheat farmers, researchers, seed company representatives and students during the Lind Dryland Research Station’s annual field day on Thursday, June 15, said years like 2023 are a reminder that dryland farming is a gamble.
Wilson Creek hosts bluegrass gathering
WILSON CREEK — Bluegrass in the Park is set to start today at Wilson Creek City Park. The inaugural event is set to bring music and visitors to one of Grant County’s smallest towns. “I've been listening to bluegrass my whole life,” said the event’s organizer Shirley Billings, whose family band plays on their porch every year for the crowd at the Little Big Show. “My whole family plays bluegrass. And I just wanted to kind of get something for the community going. So I just invited all the people that I know and they’ll come and camp and jam.” ...