Spate of traffic accidents includes one death

WASILLA — A Valley man died Friday afternoon in a motorcycle crash.

Howell N. Powder, 50, of Palmer, was killed driving his Harley-Davidson motorcycle on Wasilla-Fishhook Road.

Alaska State Troopers say just before the crash, Powder tried to avoid hitting a Ford pickup. Powder lost control, was thrown and then hit by the pickup.

The pickup’s driver, Clinton Hayes, 21, of Wasilla, was not hurt.

James Steele, chief of the Central Mat-Su Fire Department, said that call was one of three major traffic accidents his department responded to Friday. It was one busy day in an otherwise busy week.

“Wednesday we had 12 calls. Last night we had six. Today I haven’t even counted, probably somewhere between six to eight calls today,” Steele said Friday. “Today’s have been much more significant.”

At around the same time crews were responding to the wreck on Wasilla-Fishhook, other crews were at the interchange of the Parks and Glenn highways. Traffic was backed up briefly while the accident scene was cleared. As cars moved past they saw the burned-out husk of an SUV being loaded onto a wrecker.

Steele said the SUV was northbound when, “for whatever reason it went off the road into the median, appeared to have rolled and pretty much dumped everything out of it except the passengers.”

The SUV landed on its wheels in the southbound lanes and caught fire. The driver and passenger escaped with minor injuries. Authorities wouldn’t release their names.

Once that scene was clear, Central’s medics and firefighters weren’t at the station long before the next wreck of the day.

At about 4:10 p.m. at Fairview Loop and Knik-Goose Bay Road, a motorcycle T-boned a gold Jeep.

The motorcycle’s two riders were both hospitalized, one with minor injuries and one with moderate injuries, Steele said.

The trooper report said the Jeep’s driver, Michelle L. Barton, 26, of Wasilla, was driving north and pulled in front of the motorcycle. Barton was trying to cross Knik-Goose Bay to enter the parking lot of a Tesoro station across from Fairview Loop.

Contact Andrew Wellner at andrew.wellner@frontiersman.com or 352-2270.