Deputy overturns car avoiding deer

A Spokane County sheriff’s deputy rolled his patrol car while trying to avoid a deer Monday, but was uninjured.

Deputy Tom Litts was driving east on Highway 902 from Medical Lake, responding to an accident report about 4 a.m. when the deer ran in front of his patrol car. The deputy swerved to avoid the animal and the car slid off the shoulder, Cpl. Dave Reagan said in a news release.

Litts, who crawled out of the overturned patrol car, was taken to a hospital as a precaution and later released. The car was destroyed. The deer reportedly escaped without injury.

As The Spokesman-Review reported Tuesday, biologists and highway safety experts say deer-car collisions are common in mid-November, which is the peak of breeding season for whitetail deer. Bucks, in particular, can react unpredictably at such times.

In the past three years, 11 people in Washington have been killed in collisions with deer, according to the Washington State Department of Transportation.

Investigators searching for homicide victim

Investigators came up empty Tuesday during a search for a homicide victim, the Spokane County Sheriff’s Office reported.

The Sheriff’s Office declined to give details about the homicide victim or the crime – even when it occurred.

Cpl. Dave Reagan, the sheriff’s spokesman, said the investigation began a couple weeks ago.

Detectives have been examining a barn near Deer Lake in southern Stevens County, and a contractor ripped up the barn’s concrete floor on Monday, he said. Investigators spent much of Tuesday digging, Reagan said.

The search will resume today.

“We’re following a lead and digging and digging,” Reagan said.

Owners of the barn recently moved to the property and have cooperated, Reagan said. When the search is complete, the concrete floor will be replaced.

Air stagnation forecast through Saturday

An air stagnation advisory was issued for much of Eastern Washington on Tuesday as a mass of stable high pressure moved ashore across the Pacific Northwest.

The system was expected to bring cooler temperatures and little wind, allowing air pollution levels to rise without adequate ventilation in the atmosphere. Stagnant conditions have been forecast through Saturday morning.

According to the Spokane County Air Pollution Control Authority, air pollution levels had reached the moderate range on Tuesday, but were not bad enough to trigger mandatory restrictions on outdoor burning or wood stove use in the Spokane area smoke control zone. SCAPCA was asking residents to voluntarily refrain from burning wood.

The National Weather Service in Spokane reported that people with respiratory illness should follow their physician’s advice for coping with high levels of air pollution.

Interstate narrowed while lanes striped

It’s not over until the lines are painted.

Eastbound Interstate 90 will be reduced to two lanes today between Broadway and Argonne while crews stripe the lanes.

The work is one of the last parts of a project to widen I-90 to three lanes between Argonne and Sullivan. The area in question was temporarily restriped to indicate lanes leading into the expansion area.

Work will be under way from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m.

Faulty equipment blamed for outage

Faulty equipment is being blamed by the Bonneville Power Administration for a Monday power failure that darkened 15,500 homes and businesses in Mead and Spokane Valley.

The outage, which lasted three hours, was sparked by a line that fell across three major BPA power cables servicing Vera Water and Power, Inland Power and Kaiser Aluminum’s rolling mill in Trentwood. At the time, the cables were being moved to make way for construction of a north-south freeway connecting north Spokane to Interstate 90.

“What happened was a fitting that was holding the static line failed and the line fell,” said Ed Mosey, a BPA spokesman. “We have a lab at the Vancouver-Ross Complex that is testing the fitting.”

Henkels & McCoy Inc., the contractor moving the lines for BPA was not at fault, Mosey said.

Pizza party honors recall sponsor

Proponents of the drive to recall Spokane Mayor Jim West are holding a pizza party on Friday to recognize recall sponsor Shannon Sullivan.

The party is set for 5 to 7 p.m. at Hamilton Photography & Film Co. at 1427 W. Dean. Members of the public are invited to attend. Pizza and beverages will be free, according to organizers. A mail-in recall election is scheduled for Dec. 6.

Donation account opened for family

A donation account has been opened for a Westmond, Idaho, family who lost their home and all of their belongings in a fire Monday afternoon.

Jodi Grevé and her husband, Cody Likkel, and three children lived in the single-wide trailer south of Sandpoint that caught fire Monday. The family had no insurance on the home, according to Grevé’s boss, Mike Wolcott.

“It was pretty much a total loss,” said Wolcott, vice president of Inland Forest Management Inc. in Sandpoint. “They’re basically starting over.”

Nobody was home at the time of the fire. Two of the family’s dogs were inside at the time, but were rescued.

Donations are being accepted in Grevé’s name at any branch of Panhandle State Bank. Her mother, Kay Short, is coordinating donations of material items. Short can be reached at (208) 610-3993.