You're watching CAP-TV, Channel 35, Yakima.
Your total news coverage, from the Cascades to the Columbia Basin.
This is ABC Local News at 11.
Good evening and thanks for watching tonight.
I'm Renee McCullough.
Thousands of people turned out today to mourn the loss of two divers.
John Everly of Grandview was buried at the Grandview Cemetery.
A ceremony for Rusty Haber of Yakima was held at the Yakima Sun Dome.
As Matt DeCampel shows us, Rusty Haber's service brought rescue personnel and firefighters from all across the state.
For the first time in over a century of serving the community, the Yakima Fire Department held a full-dressed memorial for one of their own, lost in the line of duty.
Rusty was indeed an individual that will be missed by our department.
He will personally be missed by me.
He was the epitome of what a good firefighter should be.
Around 1,500 people gathered at the Yakima Sun Dome to remember Rusty Haber.
About half were rescue personnel from across Washington State, along with Haber's friends, family, and other well-wishers.
City officials and fellow firefighters spoke and reminisced about Rusty as a colleague, a public servant, and often a friend.
As part of the eulogy, Department Chaplain David Kelly read a poem by another Yakima firefighter about the sacrifices they're willing to make for their duty.
To give someone another chance to live, for it's plainly the only gift I can give.
And if you wonder why, I do what I do. It's the only way I can reach out and touch you.
The International Association of Firefighters presented Tracy Haber with a flag and Medal of Honor commemorating Rusty's achievements.
Yakima Fire Chief Al Chronister then sounded the last call and the fire bell was rung in honor of city firefighter Rusty Haber.
Music
In Yakima, this is Matt DeKampel, ABC Local News.
Memorial services have been scheduled for the other divers in this accident.
Services for East Valley volunteer firefighter and search and rescue diver J.R. Mesdaz will be held Saturday at 10 o'clock at the East Valley High School.
Many of the emergency workers who attended today's ceremony are planning to stay to attend this one.
Services for Rosa irrigation diver Marty Road are scheduled tomorrow at 1 o'clock at the Zillanazzarine Church.
Another apparent drowning today in the Umatilla River, the man is identified as 30-year-old Anthony Lindsay of Pendleton.
As Kirsten Joyce reports, somebody found the body lodged along the river shore early this morning.
When the Pendleton Police Department received a call at 8.30 this morning about a body in the water,
their first response was to call the Columbia Basin Dive and Rescue Team, and the divers' first response was to make a plan.
We're going to pull, tie off onto the bridge with a pulley set up and belay the divers in the boat down the river to where the victim is.
But that's tough to do with strong currents and high water levels, so divers in the boat and on the bridge have got to maneuver the boat very carefully down the river.
What's making the rescue all the more difficult for divers are these clumps of brushes in the water, which they call strainers.
The debris that's sticking up out of the water acts just like a strainer, and the potential of somebody,
a lot of our divers getting trapped in that strainer, that's our primary concern right now, is to pull us off without somebody getting trapped.
And they won't get trapped as long as they keep an eye on the swift water, which is something new for divers.
The swift water is a little different than we normally operate. Our normal operations are a dive situation, and so you get swift water and the blood starts moving a little bit.
As the directing crew on the bridge moves the rope, so does the boat move towards the body,
but it doesn't stop the fact that the river makes it a very risky situation.
But so far so good, the divers are able to reach the body and reach their final destination.
In Pendleton, Kirsten Joyce, ABC Local News.
Rising waters are once again threatening homes in the Yakima Valley.
The Natchez River crested just below flood stage at 10 o'clock this morning, and a flood watch is posted on the Yakima River.
As Julie Holland reports, some people living along Weenass Creek have already evacuated their homes.
Don and Lois Nichols have lived on Weenass Creek for 25 years.
This time the water isn't in their house yet, but it surrounds the porch and the stairway.
Last night it was not over the bank. At the very back part we have a high spot there. It wasn't anywhere near the bank.