BISMARCK, N.D. (AP) – A small South Dakota city has been hit hard by the deaths of two people who drove into a giant chasm that appeared in a dark North Dakota highway after a flash flood washed through.
The Bismarck Tribune reports that 65-year-old Jim Vanderwal and 60-year-old Trudy Peterson, both of Mobridge, South Dakota, were retrieved Tuesday from the hole on the Standing Rock Reservation in Sioux County.
Mark Kaiser says his former colleague Peterson worked at the dialysis unit at the Indian Health Service in Fort Yates. He says she had a bubbly personality and a unique laugh.
Vanderwal’s sister, Cindy Fjeldheim, says he was a driver for a U.S. mail contractor who made the run between Bismarck and Mobridge six days a week. She says he almost made it home.
