A fatal crash on Saturday and another yesterday morning bring the year’s total road deaths up to 27. As reported in our September cover story, Humboldt County has one of the highest rates of vehicle fatalities in the nation and this year is on pace to break previous records for road deaths. Saturday’s crash occurred as […]
Emergency
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Drowning Deaths for 2015 at Seven Year High
Aaron Coffelt, a 44-year-old Rio Dell man who was pulled from the Eel River near his home last Thursday, was the county’s 12th drowning of 2015. That’s the most drowning deaths recorded in at least seven years, eclipsing the 10 reported in 2013. Meteorologist Troy Nicolini of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has said […]
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UPDATED: Eureka Shooting Leaves Officer Wounded, Suspect Killed
Multiple local police agencies are investigating an officer-involved shooting that left an officer wounded and a suspect dead in Eureka this afternoon. Eureka Police Chief Andrew Mills said at a press conference — audio of which can be found here and here — that a California Highway Patrol Officer initiated a traffic stop near the […]
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Another Fire in a Squires Property
Humboldt Bay Fire spent an hour and a half fighting a blaze near downtown Eureka early this morning, holding off its firefighting efforts at one point as propane tanks exploded inside the vacant home’s garage. The fire, which appeared to start in the garage and spread to the residence at 811 H St., was reported […]
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Death on Newton B. Drury Parkway Brings Humboldt 2015 Road Deaths to 25
The death of a Klamath man at noon yesterday brings the grim total of road deaths in the county up to 25 for 2015. The driver, an 89-year-old man who has yet to be identified, was traveling northbound along the Newton B. Drury Parkway when he left the road and collided with a tree. The […]
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Fortuna High Grad Reportedly Among Oregon Shooting Victims
One of the victims in Thursday’s mass shooting at Umpqua Community College in Oregon was Jason Johnson, a 33-year-old graduate of Fortuna High School, NBC News is reporting. Officials have yet to publicly identify any of the nine people killed in the shooting spree, which began at about 10:30 a.m. Thursday, but Johnson’s mother, Tonja […]
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UPDATE: Body Found in Arcata’s Redwood Park Identified
UPDATE: The Humboldt County Coroner’s office has identifed the woman as Sarah Anne Walsh, age 25, from Crossville, Tennessee. The sheriff’s office says that they do not know at this time what Walsh, who appears to have committed suicide, was doing in Humboldt County. “At the time of death, the deceased had nothing on her person […]
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3rd UPDATE: Hit-and-Run Leaves Pedestrian Dead on 101; Road Deaths on Record Pace
3rd UPDATE: The California Highway Patrol announced this afternoon that the suspect in a fatal hit-and-run collision that occurred Sept. 1 on U.S. Highway 101 has turned herself in. According to the CHP, 18-year-old Carley Kathryn Palsson surrendered to police Friday night. See the full press release copied below. 2nd UPDATE: The California Highway Patrol […]
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Need $10K? Find the AT&T Slasher
AT&T is offering a $10,000 reward for information that leads to the arrest and conviction for whoever sliced through a fiber optic line Thursday morning between Ukiah and Hopland, resulting in a 16-hour Internet, phone and television outage that impacted five counties. Humboldt County was among the hardest hit by the outage, which stretched from […]
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Hoopa Man Dies After Weekend Crash
An 82-year-old Hoopa man injured in a Sunday car crash has died, the California Highway Patrol announced today. Christopher F. Colgrove reportedly drove his Lexus sedan head-on into an oncoming pickup truck on State Route 299, east of East Fork Bridge, shortly before noon Sunday. No update was provided as to the condition of the […]
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Photography On the Fireline: Professionals and Amateurs
As a record number of wildfires roar through the American West, at least one nationally famous photographer paid a visit to our corner of the world to document this unique moment in national history, and the men and women who work to put out the flames. Mark Thiessen, a photographer with National Geographic, embedded with […]
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Fire Update: Health Emergency, Nat. Geo Photos and Kings Range Closed
The Humboldt County health department announced today that it declared a smoke-related emergency for the county based on recent air quality conditions and forecasts. In a press conference this morning, Health Officer Donald Baird said smoke is particularly bad in the eastern county, but that countywide air quality could be bad for residents. He and […]