A wrong-way driver heading east in the westbound lanes of Interstate 90 slammed head-on into an SUV towing a boat trailer seven miles west of George on Saturday afternoon, killing two young women and shutting down the freeway for roughly seven hours.
Alvarez, injured in the crash, was taken to Quincy Valley Medical Center.
Long closures on that corridor routinely back traffic up for miles in each direction, since the next practical detour route runs well to the north on state highways and adds significant time for through-traffic drivers with no other paved way across the Columbia Basin.
That withholding period, while frustrating for a community trying to understand who was lost, exists specifically so relatives do not learn of a death from a news alert rather than from a trooper or coroner's office.
New Detection Technology Hasn't Reached Rural I-90 Washington's Department of Transportation has started responding to the state's wrong-way problem with sensor technology rather than only signage.
A 24-year-old Seattle man is charged with vehicular homicide after driving the wrong way on I-90 near George, killing two 23-year-old women. Washington has the nation's highest rate of fatal wrong-way crashes, and the rural stretch where it happened has none of the state's new detection technology.