New Mexico Woman Dies in Rollover on Freeway: Separate Crash Causes Outage

By Cassidy Friedman, The Times-News, Twin Falls, Idaho

Feb. 23–Icy roads claimed a New Mexico driver’s life Friday morning when her van skidded and rolled on Interstate 84 near the Kimberly exit, according to the Idaho State Police.

Laura J. Bell, 60, of Santa Fe, N.M., was driving a 1998 Ford Econoline Van westbound on I-84 at about 8 a.m. when she lost control of the vehicle. The van started to slide and then rolled several times.

“Weather is believed to be a factor due to reports of extremely slick road conditions in this area this morning,” wrote ISP Trooper Travis Debie in a Friday news release. Although Bell was wearing a seat belt, airbags did not deploy, according to the news release. She died at the scene.

The crash remains under investigation.

Another car accident earlier Friday morning caused an outage that left 2,300 Idaho Power customers without power for about half a day.

Most of the customers in eastern Jerome and Twin Falls counties lost power at about 3:30 a.m. when a car struck a power transmission pole. Power was restored by 3 p.m., said Idaho Power spokesman Russ Jones.

A few customers were lucky and had electricity back on at 12:30 p.m. Restoring electricity to homes and businesses in Hansen, Murtaugh, Kimberly, Hazelton and Eden took longer.

The crash tripped off a number of distribution lines, Jones said, which made restoring power a lengthier process than expected.

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