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In case you missed them, here are some of the top stories from the week:
Against the odds, Enedis Flores is holding it all together.
After her husband, Ramon, was deported to Mexico three years ago, Enedis and six of their children moved from their stable middle-class life in Vancouver down to Chula Vista, Calif. — just over the border from Tijuana, where Ramon now lives and works.
It’s been a rocky road. The family is surviving, but it hasn’t been easy. It still isn’t easy.
• Bridging the Border: A family divided
For anyone obsessed with the upcoming closure of the Interstate 5 Bridge’s northbound span, set your countdown clock for 212 days.
That’s how long until the span, which opened 103 years ago, shuts down for up to nine days, starting Sept. 12 and ending Sept. 20.
The closure is to replace two trunnions, part of the drawbridge’s lifting mechanism that allows tall vessels to pass under the green structure. The work will replace sheaves, or wheels about 12 feet in diameter, sheave covers, cables and trunnions, which are axles 20 inches in diameter that help lift and lower the bridge.
The man accused of fatally shooting one man and wounding two women at Vancouver’s Smith Tower Apartments in October died Tuesday, according to the Clark County Sheriff’s Office.
Robert “Bob” Breck, 80, had been in custody at the Clark County Jail since Oct. 3 and was being held without bail. He was hospitalized on Feb. 5 after falling ill, and he died of natural causes, the sheriff’s office announced Wednesday. Breck’s family was aware of his condition.
He was facing one count of first-degree murder and two counts of attempted first-degree murder in Clark County Superior Court. His trial was scheduled for April 11.
• Competency evaluation ordered for Smith Tower shooting suspect
• One dead in shooting at Smith Tower in Vancouver; suspect in custody
A Clark County Superior Court jury convicted Ryan M. Burge on Thursday of second-degree murder, finding that he killed 5-year-old Hartley Anderson while babysitting the girl.
Jurors were undecided on a charge of first-degree murder but found Burge was guilty of a lesser included charge of manslaughter. The second-degree murder charge was the second count against Burge. The jury also determined that Burge was guilty of several factors that made his crime particularly egregious, including that Hartley was vulnerable and he betrayed a position of trust.
Burge showed little reaction to the conclusion of his trial. His sentencing was set for March 11.
• Closing arguments heard in death of 5-year-old Vancouver girl
Construction work has been underway for months at Terminal 1’s Block D, the future site of the AC Hotel by Marriott. So far, the work has focused on preparing the ground beneath the site by sinking hundreds of pilings into the soil to support the weight of the future structures above.
There’s just one hiccup: Someone else did the same thing more than a century ago, and they never took the old pilings out.
The G.M. Standifer Construction Corp. built the Standifer Shipyard at the future Block D site in 1917 to churn out wooden and steel cargo ships during World War I — a massive project that spurred much of the Port of Vancouver’s early industrial development.
• Design proposals unveiled for Vancouver’s Terminal 1
