Mike Prager

The rutted pavement on Interstate 90 through east Spokane is getting fixed starting tonight. The Washington state Department of Transportation doesn’t believe the work will cause major inconvenience to drivers.

A 19-year-old Spokane Valley woman was killed Wednesday night after she hit a moose with her car eastbound on Interstate 90 near Liberty Lake, got out to look and was struck by a pickup, state troopers said Thursday. Alexandra E. Phillips died at the scene of the accident.

Road construction in the Spokane area is still ramping up for the season, but drivers and business owners are already frustrated by delays and detours. The state will up the ante Monday when it begins rut repair on Interstate 90 through east Spokane, a route that carries 100,000 vehicles a day. The work will be at night, so officials said they don’t expect major slowdowns. All travel lanes will be open from 6 a.m. to 7 p.m.

A “supercell” thunderstorm that spun up funnel clouds over Lincoln County and damaged property south of Deer Park last Wednesday also dropped a tornado north of Davenport, the National Weather Service said Monday. Meteorologist Kerry Jones said the tornado appeared to skip along the terrain near Teel Hill Road for about four miles just south of the Spokane River and north of Davenport. Supercells, the most severe thunderstorms, have the potential to cause the most damage.

A “super-cell” thunderstorm that spun up funnel clouds over Lincoln County and damaged property south of Deer Park last Wednesday also dropped a tornado north of Davenport, the National Weather Service said today. Meteorologist Kerry Jones said the tornado appeared to skip along the terrain near Teel Hill Road for about four miles just south of the Spokane River and north of Davenport.

Don’t be surprised if you see more bicycle riders on Spokane-area roads this week. This is the second annual Bike to Work Week in Spokane, an event that could draw as many as 1,500 participants, organizers said.

Don’t be surprised if you see more bicycle riders on Spokane-area roads this week.

A 68-year-old North Idaho man was killed in an auto-pedestrian accident this afternoon at Spokane County Raceway.

Lynn White and her family hunkered down in their Wild Rose Prairie home north of Spokane on Wednesday night while high winds from a thunderstorm slammed their home in what a meteorologist said was a quick-moving “downburst.” “It was kind of an eerie, howling sound,” White said Thursday.

The first widespread testing for lead exposure among Spokane children found that 6 percent of those tested had ingested measurable amounts of toxic lead. Workers found that 32 children among 500 tested had lead in their blood, but only two of them had levels high enough to be of concern under federal health standards.

Lynn White and her family hunkered down in their Wild Rose Prairie home north of Spokane on Wednesday night while winds from a thunderstorm enveloped their property. “It was kind of an eerie howling sound,” she said today.