Several alcohol related arrests reported and area rivers continue to rise. New Indy Mayor Joe Hogsett took his oath of office on New Year’s Day. Indiana’s first river otter trapping season has harvested two thirds of the limit already.
ARRESTS
-A Dubos County woman was jailed Friday for operating while intoxicated with controlled substance and OWI with endangerment. 29-year-old Jana Spurlock of Huntingburg was booked into the Daviess County Security Center on $2000 bond at 6:23 Friday morning.
-23-year-old Trevor Miller of Washington was arrested Friday evening for possession of marijuana and paraphernalia. Bond was posted.
-58-year-old Timothy Furman of Washington was arrested for operating while intoxicated refusal overnight. He was booked into the security center at 12:18-am today.
-40-year-old Heather Lorscheider of Washington is facing several charges. Washington Police charged her with three counts of operating while intoxicated. Bond was set at $2000. She was jailed at 1:23 am today.
SINK HOLE
The Bureau of Mines is due in Washington on Tuesday to investigate a sink hole east of the 15th Street and State Street intersection. 15th to 21st is closed until further notice due to the hole caused by a mine shaft. Be sure and avoid that area
RIVERS
Flood warnings continues along area rivers.
The White at Edwardsport was over 21.3 feet and is expected to reach a crest of about 22.5 feet before tomorrow morning. At Petersburg it’s at 23 feet and should crest Monday at 23.7. State Roads 58 between Plainville and Edwardsport and 257 south of Washington are closed due to high water.
The East Fork White at Shoals is around 21 feet which is a foot above flood stage. It will rise to 22.6 by Snday afternoon and continue to rise and start to fall below flood stage on Tuesday.
The Wabash at the Lincoln Bridge at Vincennes is at 24.1 feet and will rise to 26.4 by Tuesday morning.
The Embarrass River at Lawrenceville is at 40 feet starting to fall.
TAX BREAKS ENDING
The new year marks the end of several Indiana tax breaks. Indiana begins taxing police reward money and lottery winnings this year. Until now, lottery jackpots were taxed only if you won more than 12-hundred dollars. Legislators abolished little-used tax credits for historic preservation, donated computers, home insulation and solar roof vents. And they’ve clarified that not only can you only claim one homestead deduction, but only one person can take the deduction for a single property. Most new laws take effect on the fiscal new year on July 1. But 19 new laws are tied to the start of the calendar year, many of them relating to tax law.
37 CRASH
he cause of a crash that killed four Brownsburg teens in Morgan County remains unclear. State Police said a Ford Taurus traveling northbound on State Road 37 Wednesday night crossed over the median for an unknown reason and hit a van–killing Mathew Chambers, Lucas Kenworthy, Noah Tex, and Riley Hurst. A fifth person in the Taurus was hospitalized. Two adults and two children inside the van were also taken to the hospital.
JOHNSON COUNTY SKYDIVING
A skydiving accident on New Year’s Day claimed the life of a 54-year-old woman from Martinsville. Police in Johnson County say that Theresa Woods was found unresponsive in a field after jumping from a plane and impacting the ground hard. They still do not know exactly what caused the hard landing but say that the parachute did open. Woods, who was not new to skydiving, was supposed to land near the airport that she took off from, but instead ended up in a field south of that location. The same company which organized her skydive was connected to a deadly accident from back in 2014.
OTTER TRAPPING
Indiana’s first river otter trapping season since the furry species was reintroduced to the state in the 1990s has seen trappers take two-thirds of the state’s limit less than halfway into that season.
More than 400 otters had been taken by licensed Indiana trappers as of Friday. If that pace seen during the four-month-long season’s first seven weeks continues, Indiana’s season will end in late January or early February, when its 600-otter statewide quota will be reached.
Indiana’s season opened Nov. 15 and ends March 15th, or whenever the quota is met. Indiana’s otter trapping season is its first in more than nine decades.
Indiana became the last of six states in the lower Midwest, including Illinois, to authorize otter trapping following successful otter releases in the 1980s and 1990s.