Pia Hallenberg

Most of the Spokane area was just about done cleaning up after the last storm when the National Weather Service issued a new thunderstorm warning Tuesday morning. The previous storm tracked through north Spokane downing trees and power lines, leaving some people without power for days.

The city has launched a new online graffiti reporting tool, allowing people to photograph the graffiti, upload the address where it was found and report it to the city’s code enforcement officers. Heather Trautman, director of the Office of Neighborhood Services and code enforcement, demonstrated the new application using a historical marker located just west of City Hall freshly tagged with graffiti.

School starts right around the corner and on Saturday at Unity in the Community in Riverfront Park, organizers expect to give away nearly 500 bags of school supplies to children in grades K-8. To qualify for a bag of school supplies, children first participate in the multicultural event by visiting booths that represent different cultures.

Pastor Liv Larson Andrews likes to walk through the West Central neighborhood. On Monday mornings, she crosses the street from Salem Lutheran Church on Broadway Avenue and meets a small group of parishioners at Indaba Coffee. Then they head out on the weekly “walk and pray.”

Residents holding down the fort in storm-ravaged Riverside Village Mobile Home Park couldn’t believe their eyes when another storm moved in Saturday evening. Lonnie Jones was in the makeshift cooking shelter that’s been built next to the manager’s office, where dinner brought in by a local church had just been served. “They all started running away and I’m standing there holding on to the tarp,” he said. “I’m thinking ‘what about all this food?’ – I wasn’t going to run anywhere.”

It was, perhaps, a bit hot for the gift of a blanket, but that didn’t dampen the spirit among the three veterans who received handmade quilts from the Quilts of Valor organization. Clarence “Sonny” Shaffer, Jim West and Buck Buchanan each received a carefully stitched red, white and blue quilt at a small ceremony at Rockwood at Hawthorne, on Monday. Buchanan, whose wife Jodie Buchanan is a dedicated quilter, jokingly said it was about time he got his own quilt.

It’s early Monday morning in Underhill Park and it’s already past 70 degrees. Construction equipment rumbles at the south end of the park where a big stormwater project is under way. At the north end, Sally Shaver is setting up for another morning of basketball camp. She refers to herself as the lunch lady, but organizing lunch is just a small part of her day.

The dust had barely settled over the new equestrian arena in Riverside State Park before horses and riders began using it. “Actually, people were using it as we were building it,” said Ken Carmichael, who’s the treasurer of The Inland Empire Backcountry Horsemen, a group that helped build the arena.

The last thing Sebastian Greene, 18, remembers before he broadsided a huge truck on the morning of Oct. 8, 2012, was fiddling with the heater in his car. “It was kind of cold and I was trying to get the heater right,” Greene said.

When Derrick Self comes to work at Super 1 Foods on 29th Avenue at 5 a.m. the store isn’t open. Self is the manager of the meat department, but his day doesn’t start with steak cutting. “It’s not like in the Rocky movies where we go around and slap the meat all day,” he said.

Back in 2001, When Eldonna Shaw first came to interview for a position with what was then the Valley Chamber of Commerce, she had trouble finding the office. She remembers driving around looking for the address before finally locating it. “Essentially we were on the second floor of the office building behind the Quality Inn,” Shaw said, smiling at the memory. During the interview she decided to give her potential employer a bit of free advice.

 The South Perry District is often used as a good example of successful neighborhood development. Restaurants and businesses have filled almost every available storefront in the dedicated business corridor over the past 10 years.  The business boom has brought in a lot of traffic to the chagrin of some neighbors, including 20-year South Perry resident Jim Ahasay, who lives just south of the business area.

A South Perry landmark came crumbling down Tuesday morning when heavy machinery moved in to tear down Lonnie’s Auto Repair. The shop was at 826 S. Perry St., on the northwest corner of East Ninth Avenue and South Perry Street.