Top 5: Stormy weather, broken water mains and a lasting marriage | News

Here’s last week’s top five stories that we wrote based on your interaction. From weather to giant holes in the ground, there was always something interesting happening in the community.

Our top story was a recap of Friday’s weather events that swept through the Inland Northwest. Earlier in the week, we wondered if we could work “pack a wallop” into a story and we did with a Storify story of the thunderstorms featuring tweets and photos from the community. The only sad part, we can’t use “pack a wallop” on any other story in the near future.

Also on the list, a water main erupts into a volcano of water in north Spokane also rupturing a gas line prompting the evacuation of homes in the area. It was a big story that day that meant staying in the heat for quite a while before it was safe to cross the caution tape. When we finally did, we too could see the giant hole that neighbors get to look at for the next couple of weeks.

For generations to come, neighbors will always speak of the time the water flowed like the Columbia River from the Houston and Belt broken water main and down and across Francis.

One item we’re glad to see on today’s list: the story of Betty and Willard Little, a couple planning on celebrating 72 years together in August. We sat down with them as they shared their history together including Willard’s 18 months in Guam serving with the Navy Seabees.

In case you missed it, we went on a ride-along with Washington State Patrol on Thursday evening and we curated the tweets from the ride including a question and answer session with Trooper Paul Wanzenried. The questions came from those following along on Twitter.

1. Inland Northwest storm packs a wallop

2. Neighbors gawk at giant hole in north Spokane

3. Strong thunderstorms predicted for Inland Northwest

4. Sandpoint lotto winner: “Cool, I won”

5. Spending a lifetime together through war, children and Spokane