The River Fog Scare
A young man goes missing on the Columbia River after his launch engine fails, triggering a town-wide search.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
Ike Timmerman caused a scare in Richland Friday evening. He left at dusk to cross the river in his launch to get a passenger from the Pasco side and became lost in the fog when the power failed. When the young man did not show up, word was sent to the high school where most of the townspeople were attending the basketball game, and everyone who could immediately took to the river. Some patrolled the shore with lanterns and a number went out in boats to aid in the work, but no signs of the lost boy were found. He drifted around until daylight, when he got to land and returned home.
“Some patrolled the shore with lanterns and a number went out in boats to aid in the work.”
The Columbia River remains a treacherous, unpredictable body of water. This story captures a moment of tight-knit community mobilization, where a town's social life—a school basketball game—was instantly set aside to navigate a real-world emergency.
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