Icy roads blamed in fatal wreck on Hood Canal Bridge

Herald news services

Cold temperatures dropping into the 20s and 30s chilled Western Washington on Sunday, and icy roads were partly blamed for the death of one woman in an accident on the Hood Canal Bridge.

Tiffany Johnson, 26, of Bremerton was killed when the pickup she was riding in collided with another vehicle early Sunday morning, the Washington State Patrol said. The pickup driver, a Poulsbo woman, was airlifted to Harborview Medical Center with a head injury and was in satisfactory condition Sunday night.

Trooper Randy Gardner said the accident was caused by driving too fast for conditions on the icy road.

Colder than normal temperatures were expected statewide for the next few days, the National Weather Service said, although Sunday’s weather was not as cold as anticipated.

"Basically, the snow threat is nil now," said Jay Albrecht, a forecaster for the service.

A few areas — south Everett, Clearview in south Snohomish County, and areas east of Kirkland — got a half-inch of snow Sunday, but it quickly melted, Albrecht said.

State troopers reported several accidents in the east King County area.

The temperature in Bellingham was 29 degrees Sunday afternoon and Albrecht said cold air there would start moving south, putting temperatures into the 20s at night and in the 30s in the daytime for the next few days on the west side of the Cascades.

But the weather should start warming up on Thursday and could be back to normal by next weekend, Albrecht said.

"The Cascades are helping us out by blocking a lot of the cold," he said.

Meanwhile, in Eastern Washington, temperatures were a little colder Sunday and were expected to stay that way a little longer.

Some areas were seeing scattered snow showers Sunday evening and Walla Walla had a mixture of snow and rain.

Northern parts of Eastern Washington will see temperatures from zero to 10 degrees above, Albrecht said. The southern parts were expected to be a little warmer at 15 to 20 degrees.

But temperatures in the eastern part of the state were expected to stay below normal until the end of the week.

Kaiser Aluminum stops Mead production in energy crunch: Kaiser Aluminum Corp. said Sunday that it has begun a temporary shutdown of its smelter at Mead and sold its power for December, completely idling the company’s Northwest smelter capacity. The shutdown — expected to be complete in several days — follows earlier partial cutbacks at the 200,000-metric-ton capacity aluminum smelter near Spokane. About 400 hourly employees at Mead will be affected by the 10-month curtailment, the company said. They will receive up to 70 percent of wages for a period of time depending on length of service, with medical benefits and pension credits to be continued, the company said. Kaiser Aluminum will receive about $52 million from sale of the power provided under a contract with the Bonneville Power Administration, the company said. The money is to be received in January 2001. Kaiser said it intends to keep Northwest smelters curtailed until Oct. 1, 2001.

Spokane company shaken by embezzlement: Each of the 210 employees at one of Spokane’s oldest home improvement companies has lost about $1,000 in holiday bonuses this year, thanks to an accountant who embezzled $1.2 million. Guy Marshall, 45, has been sentenced to 33 months in a federal prison for the embezzlement. Marshall stole the money over a five-year period from April 1993 to August 1998, said company head Vern Ziegler in a statement filed in U.S. District Court.