Hurricane Nate Makes Landfall on the Gulf Coast, Then Weakens - The New York Times

Hurricane Nate Makes Landfall on the Gulf Coast, Then Weakens - The New York Times

BILOXI, Miss. — This year’s crushing hurricanes have submerged Houston, wrecked the Florida Keys and decimated Puerto Rico, but spared the central Gulf Coast — at least until now.

Hurricane Nate, the fourth to lash the United States in just over six weeks, made landfall on Saturday in southeast Louisiana, near the mouth of the Mississippi River, as a Category 1 system. It made landfall again hours later, this time near Biloxi, with roaring wind and heavy rain, and dragged in flooding that overtopped Highway 90 and poured into the bottom level of some parking garages.

The National Hurricane Center later downgraded the hurricane to a tropical storm as it moved farther inland over Mississippi and Alabama. The center added that though the storm was rapidly weakening, with wind speed falling to 45 miles per hour by 8 Eastern, storm-surge flooding continued, and heavy rainfall spread over the southeastern Uniited States.