Nate a big rainmaker in East after leaving sighs of relief in South

BILOXI, Miss. – Nate slogged its way across the U.S. East Coast on Monday, dumping heavy rains and bringing gusty winds to inland states, a day after Hurricane Nate brought a burst of flooding and power outages to the U.S. Gulf Coast.

Nate spared the region the kind of catastrophic damage left by a series of hurricanes that hit the southern U.S. and Caribbean in recent weeks.

Nate – the first hurricane to make landfall in Mississippi since Katrina in 2005 – quickly lost strength Sunday, with its winds diminishing to a tropical depression as it pushed northward into Alabama and Georgia with heavy rain.

By 5 a.m. Monday, according to the National Hurricane Center, Nate was about 20 miles southwest of Akron, Ohio and 85 miles northeast of Columbus, and moving swiftly to the northeast. It was classified as a post-tropical depression, with maximum sustained winds of 20 mph.

Nate was expected to bring 3 to 6 inches of rain to the Deep South, eastern Tennessee Valley and southern Appalachians through Monday. The Ohio Valley, central Appalachians and Northeast could also get heavy rain before the storm exits Maine on Tuesday.

It was a Category 1 hurricane when it came ashore outside Biloxi early Sunday, its second landfall after initially hitting southeastern Louisiana on Saturday evening.

The storm surge from the Mississippi Sound littered Biloxi’s main beachfront highway with debris and flooded a casino’s lobby and parking structure overnight.

By dawn, however, Nate’s receding floodwaters didn’t reveal any obvious signs of widespread damage in the city where Hurricane Katrina had leveled thousands of beachfront homes and businesses.

No storm-related deaths or injuries were immediately reported.

Mississippi Gov. Phil Bryant praised state and local officials and coastal residents for working together to avoid loss of life.

Lee Smithson, director of the state emergency management agency, said damage from Nate was held down in part because of work done and lessons learned from Katrina.

“If that same storm would have hit us 15 years ago, the damage would have been extensive and we would have had loss of life.” Smithson said of Nate. “But we have rebuilt the coast in the aftermath of Katrina higher and stronger.”

Nate knocked out power to more than 100,000 homes and businesses in Mississippi, Alabama, Louisiana and Florida, but crews worked on repairs and it appeared many of the outages had been restored within 24 hours.

As of Sunday evening, Alabama Power said it had electricity back to more than 64,000 customers and some 36,000 remained without power, while utilities and cooperatives in Mississippi said it had restored power to more than 21,000 customers who lost power during the storm. In Louisiana, there were scattered outages during the storm, while Florida utilities restored power to more than 37,000 customers.

Mississippi’s Gulf Coast casinos got approval to reopen in midmorning after closing Saturday as the storm approached.

Sean Stewart, checking on his father’s sailboat at a Biloxi marina after daybreak, found another boat had sunk, its sail still fluttering in Nate’s diminishing winds. Stewart was relieved to find his father’s craft intact.

“I got lucky on this one,” he said.

Before Nate sped past Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula late Friday and entered the Gulf of Mexico, it drenched Central America with rains that left at least 22 people dead. But Nate didn’t approach the intensity of Harvey, Irma and Maria – powerful storms that left behind massive destruction during 2017′s exceptionally busy hurricane season.

“We are thankful because this looked like it was going to be a freight train barreling through the city,” said Vincent Creel, a spokesman for the city of Biloxi.

The head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency said the four hurricanes that have struck the U.S. and its territories this year have “strained” resources, with roughly 85 percent of the agency’s forces deployed.

“We’re still working massive issues in Harvey, Irma, as well as the issues in Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands, and now this one,” FEMA Administrator Brock Long told ABC’s “This Week.”

The federal government declared emergencies in Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida.

Nate initially made landfall Saturday evening in Louisiana, but fears that it would overwhelm the fragile pumping system in New Orleans proved to be unfounded. The storm passed to the east of New Orleans, and Mayor Mitch Landrieu lifted a curfew on the city known for its all-night partying.

“Hurricane Nate had the potential to wreak havoc on Louisiana, but thankfully, we were largely spared major damage,” Gov. John Bel Edwards said in a statement.

In Alabama, Dauphin Island Mayor Jeff Collier said he woke up around 3 a.m. Sunday to discover knee-deep water in his yard. Although some homes and cars on the island had flooded, Collier said he hadn’t heard of anyone needing rescue.

“We didn’t think it would be quite that bad,” he said. “It kind of snuck up on us in the wee hours of the morning.”

At landfall in Mississippi, the fast-moving storm had maximum sustained winds near 85 mph, the U.S. National Hurricane Center in Miami said. Nate steadily weakened after its first landfall in a sparsely populated area of Plaquemines Parish, Louisiana.

Biloxi city employees worked before dawn to clear Highway 90, where sand, logs and even a large trash bin had been washed onto the four-lane, beachfront road. Despite the debris, there was little to no visible damage to structures. A handful of businesses had reopened before dawn, and the storm surge that washed across the highway had receded by 6 a.m.

Mississippi DOT crews had to remove over 1,000 pumpkins blown onto Highway 90 in Pass Christian, west of Gulfport.

Willie Cook, 75, spent his morning chopping a pecan tree that fell in his backyard. He said Nate was nothing like Katrina, which pushed 8 feet of water into his east Biloxi house.

“The wind was blowing, but it wasn’t too rough,” Cook said of Nate.

Storm surge flooded the parking structure of the Golden Nugget casino and several others in Biloxi.

Mississippi Emergency Management Agency spokesman Greg Flynn said about 1,100 people spent the night in shelters.

“Thankfully, right now we have no major damage reports,” he said.

Hancock County Emergency Management Agency Director Brian Adam said Nate’s storm surge flooded low-lying roads, but he hadn’t heard any reports of flooded homes.

“We turned out fairly good,” he said as he prepared to survey neighborhoods.

In Alabama, the storm flooded homes and cars on the coast and inundated at least one major road in downtown Mobile.

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Chiefs stay undefeated, run away from young Texans

The Kansas City Chiefs (5-0), a.k.a. The Best Team In Football, stayed undefeated against the Houston Texans (2-3), beating the ailing home team, 42-34, on Sunday night in Week 5. Here’s what we learned:

1. If you don’t consider Alex Smith to be in, and even the front-runner in, the MVP race this season, you’re in deep denial and/or living in the past. The pilot of the game’s most efficient offense, Smith’s mobility and decision-making were on full display on Sunday evening. The Chiefs quarterback completed 78 percent of his passes and completed at least two passes to eight different receivers against one of the league’s better secondaries. Smith (324 yards) looked as in control rolling out of the pocket and holding the ball on run-pass options as he did standing in and launching lasers up the seam to Travis Kelce or down the sideline to Tyreek Hill. Through five games, Smith has as many interceptions as he does losses: zero. Give him the respect he deserves.

2. The tone of this one was set from the very first drive, Yes, the Chiefs mounted a characteristic 15-play, eight-minute scoring drive out of the gate, but it was a pair of devastating injuries on Houston’s side of the ball that changed the trajectory of this tilt. First, Whitney Mercilus was ruled out with a chest injury. NFL Network’s James Palmer reported that he suffered a torn pectoral and will be out for the year. Then, the captain went down, for good.

J.J. Watt suffered a tibial plateau fracture on the 14th play of the game and limped off the field with the help of trainers to a standing ovation from an emotional Houston crowd. Watt is done for the year before the Texans’ bye for the second consecutive season, NFL Network Insider Ian Rapoport reported. After the departure of two of their best pass rushers, the air went out of the stadium, Houston’s vaunted pass rush lost its mojo and the game was soon lost.

Watt’s loss will be a major emotional blow, to the football team and the city, but as the Texans did last season and as Houston did last month, there’s little doubt they’ll recover, especially in a competitive AFC South.

3. After a sluggish, sloppy first half, Deshaun Watson bounced back in a big way in the second half. The Texans rookie came into the game as the leading rushing quarterback, but his best moments came when he moved in and out of the pocket evading Kansas City’s swarming second-half pass rush. Watson threw five touchdowns, four of them in the second half during Houston’s failed comeback attempt, becoming the first rookie with four-plus touchdown passes in back-to-back games since Robert Griffin III. Watson’s best passes were deep scoring dimes to Will Fuller (48 yards) and DeAndre Hopkins (34). Expectations should be kept at bay in Houston — the Texans won’t, and can’t, score 57 points every week and Watson’s rapport with Hopkins (four catches on 12 targets) needs work. But Watson, with 14 touchdowns in five games, is the real deal.

4. A relatively quiet night for the breakout rookie Kareem Hunt. As he had in his four previous starts, Hunt got going as the game went on, finishing with 107 yards on 29 carries after a slow start, his fourth 100-yard game in as many career games. (Funny that a rookie breaking the century mark is an afterthought in a prime-time game.) But when the result was up in the air, it was his backfield mate, Charcandrick West, who shined. West scored two first-half touchdowns and also proved a capable blocker. Passed over for Hunt when starting back Spencer Ware went down for the season, West is making himself useful in as many ways as possible, a perfect representation of Kansas City’s modus operandi.

5. Fuller has been back on the field for only two games since returning from a collarbone injury, and he’s already made a massive difference. The speedy second-year receiver scored two touchdowns on two catches against a stiff Chiefs secondary, including one fourth-quarter home-run ball. Fuller’s 49-yard punt return in the fourth quarter was blazing. Once characterized as a drop artist, Fuller has reclaimed his status as a reliable field-stretching deep-ball threat and a force on special teams.

6. The Chiefs lost three significant players to injury as the game wore on. Travis Kelce left in the second half to be evaluated for a concussion after taking a hit to the helmet in the first half; on pace for a career night, he never returned and coach Andy Reid said after the game Kelce is in the concussion protcol. Wide receiver Chris Conley suffered a nasty-looking Achilles injury and was quickly ruled out. After tallying 1.5 sacks, Pro Bowl linebacker Justin Houston left late in the fourth quarter with a calf injury. The only things that can derail K.C.’s fairy-tale season are trips to the training room.

7. Not to be overshadowed by Hunt, last year’s breakout game-changer Tyreek Hill stole the show late. His 82-yard punt return put the win on ice and wasn’t even his best play of the night. Hill’s toe-tapping 38-yard grab along the sideline was his most impressive grab as a true wide receiver.

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