CAR VERSUS SCHOOL BUS IN NAPAVINE
• Lewis County Fire District 5 was called about 8:25 this morning when a passenger car and a fully-loaded school bus collided at West Washington Street and Alder Avenue Northwest in Napavine. There were no injuries, fire Lt. Laura Hanson said. Hanson reported the bus was struck from behind by the car resulting in minor damage to both vehicles. The children were picked up by another bus and taken to school.
LOST HIKER SLEEPS IN SNOW NEAR ASHFORD
• The subject of yesterday’s search and rescue mission southeast of Ashford spent two nights sleeping in the snow after he lost sight of his trail because of the snow, the Lewis County Sheriff’s Office reported this morning. The 49-year-old Auburn man had set out from Forest Service Road 85 on Saturday, hiking toward a place called High Hut, a state-owned shelter in the forest, Chief Civil Deputy Stacy Brown said. Searchers on snow mobiles followed footprints in the snow and found the man yesterday afternoon, who had made his way to High Hut, according to Brown. He was warm and uninjured and had been very well equipped for his outing, she said.
THEFT
• Centralia police were called just before 6 p.m. yesterday to the Centralia Outlet mall on Lum Road after subjects took 10 to 15 purses from the Coach Factory store and fled in a vehicle. The loss from the high-end handbag store is estimated at about $3,000, according to police.
• Centralia police took a report yesterday from the 200 block of West Main Street of unauthorized withdrawals from a woman’s account. It happened in March and the loss is somewhere between $400 and $500, according to police.
• Morton police were called on Sunday morning to a burglary to a business on the 300 block of state Route 7 in which somebody went inside during the night and took a welder, wire, hand tools and acetylene and oxygen tanks, according to the Morton Police Department.
• Somebody broke into a residence on the 100 block of Collar Avenue in Morton sometime between last Wednesday and Friday and stole a VHF/UHF FM “transceiver” valued at an estimated $300, according to the Morton Police Department.
• An individual alerted by his car alarm on the 1300 block of Belmont Avenue in Centralia yesterday afternoon went out to check and discovered someone had broken out a window and stolen an iPod, a GPS unit and stereo equipment, according to the Centralia Police Department.
POLICE PURSUITS
• The Washington State Patrol reports a driver who fled a traffic stop last night in Centralia crashed into a brick flower bed near Ellsbury and Alder streets. It happened about 11:40 p.m. near Interstate 5’s Mellen Street interchange. The 2005 Hyundai Accent was totaled, according to the state patrol. The driver fled the scene. A charge of hit and run is to be referred to the Lewis County Prosecutors Office for the suspected driver, a 24-year-old Oakville man, according to the investigating trooper.
• The (Longview) Daily News reports a police pursuit that began south of Vader on Interstate 5 yesterday evening ended when the driver stopped in the parking lot of the Cowlitz County Jail in Kelso and surrendered. Read it here.
Tags: By Sharyn L. Decker, news reporter