G OIB N

MAYMAY

SHEETS INSIDE!SHEETS INSIDE!

GOOD MORNING

The weather.

Cloudy during the day,

but grab your umbrella

this evening. Light rain

will give way to show-

ers. Chance of rain is

70 percent.

High today ..............52

Low tonight ............36

F40527472

WEEDS AND SEEDS

SUNDAYS » D1

LIGHTS AND SOUND

FACES » A6

BUZZER BEATER

SPORTS » B1

One dollar and fifty cents

SOURDOUGH JACK:

“I train for everything. It’s how I get to Anchorage.”

Business » C1 | Classified » E1 | Dear Abby » D2 | Obituaries » A4 | Opinion » C4 | Sports » B1 | Sundays » D1INSIDE

Healy man charged with felony second-degree sexual abuse of 15-year-old. » A4Inside Today

newsminer.comSUNDAY, APRIL 29, 2018

• • •

T H E V O I C E O F I N T E R I O R A L A S K A

Sunrise: 5:25 a.m.

Sunset: 10:12 p.m.

WEATHER » A5

Fairbanks man dies in crash on Parks Highway

By Dorothy ChomiczDCHOMICZ

@NEWSMINER.COM

A Fairbanks resident was killed and another seriously injured in a two-vehicle motor col-lision Friday night on the Parks Highway.

According to an Alas-ka State Trooper news release, 20-year-old Meghan Blemke was driving a 2016 Toyota Camry northbound at 10:20 p.m. when she lost control and crossed the center line at Mile 172. The Camry was T-boned by a south-bound 2017 Jeep Wran-gler driven by Dominic Comerate, 25, of Fair-banks.

Many good Samari-tans stopped to render aid until emergency responders from Can-twell, Talkeetna and Trapper Creek arrived.

Blemke’s passenger, Willie Graham, 28, of Fairbanks, was pro-nounced dead at the scene.

Blemke sustained serious and life-threat-ening injuries. She was transported to Providence Hospital in Anchorage for treat-ment.

Comerate, his female passenger and a dog riding in the Jeep were not injured in the col-lision, according to the release.

T h e c o l l i s i o n occurred about 2 miles north of Hurricane Gulch and 38 miles south of Cantwell. Rain and snow were falling at the time of the acci-dent. The highway was wet and icy, according to the release.

Both drivers and their passengers were wearing seat belts.

It is unknown at press time whether impair-ment was a factor.Contact staff writer Dorothy

Chomicz at 459-7582. Follow

her on Twitter:

@FDNMcrime.

Roadway was wet and icy, troopers said

By Sam FriedmanSFRIEDMAN@NEWSMINER.COM

FORT GREELY — For the crews who sit on alert here, it’s not clear at first whether a North Korean missile is a test launch headed into the Pacific Ocean or an attack on an American city.

In a windowless office known as “the node,” a five-member team of Alaska National Guardsmen spends its shifts doing training and waiting for reports of launches.

If an attack occurred, they’d need to quickly decide whether to knock the incoming missile out of the sky by launching an interceptor missile buried near their office.

A missile has never been fired from the Fort Greely silos, and would only be used if there were an actual attack. But the crews have to be ready to launch when North Korea conducts a missile test.

Top: Sgt. Matthew Myers, communications operator for Echo Crew, participates in a mock exercise in which two ground-based midcourse missiles intercept an intercontinental ballistic missile bound for Los Angeles during a media tour of Fort Greely on Thursday.

Above: Nippon Television Network videographer Jumpei Shimizu, left, films correspondent Mariko Hoshi in front of an interceptor missile during the media tour.

Left: A silo interface vault is used to access and service the top the interceptor missile, which is seen in the background.SAM FRIEDMAN/NEWS-

MINER PHOTOS

‘We train for everything’

Fort Greely tour offers rare

glimpse into life at missile defense

control room

FORT » A3