This Parking Garage there, thats at the Hard Rock Hotel and casino and, of course, these firefighters and some of the First Responders trying to get through it in biloxi, mississippi there. Thats one of the hardest hit areas. The flooding took the first floor of the casino under water. The Biloxi Fire Department took this video as the firefighters were wading through it. Minutes ago, nate was downgraded to a Tropical Storm. So far is knocked out power to nearly 73,000 customers in alabama, florida, and mississippi. We are tracking the impact of the storm with a team of meteorologists here in atlanta and reporter in mississippi and alabama. Lets begin with meteorologist ivan cabrera, the newest information from the National Hurricane center, what are you learning about the strength of the storm . The good news is no longer tracking a hurricane here. It is now a Tropical Storm with winds of 70 miles an hour, though as ill show you in the current wind gusts, not finding anywhere near that
still, you were rocking and rolling as we were, because it was not just the way the water was falling out of the sky and the wind was blowing, but also the way that the gulf of mexico decided to take up residency on the shoreline here, especially on u.s. highway 90. that is one of the great concerns they have had because they knew that that highway, such a thorough fare, east and west, it would cut off a major route. there was also flooding in the casinos here in biloxi. three in particular. the hard rock, the imperial, and i m going to lose my thought on the other one. but the golden nugget, thanks very much. the good news is that it looks like the water got primarily into the parking garages and into the public spaces, so that s the entryway areas, the ones closer to the ground. however, we re being told there was no flooding in the gaming area. so that s good there as well. there was one dynamic rescue in harrison county. a family in a car that turned in some water, they used a high
inland, which it is doing right now. we re seeing more of a problem that nate is causing since landfall. watch this. you can see the surge is halfway up inside this entrance. there is some escalators straight ahead. there is the surge halfway out the door. storm surge is no joke. this is what they warned about. i m only about maybe six or seven steps in, all the way up to my ankles. goes further back, the road dips further back. really, really rolling now. and an indication clearly that nate if not right on shore, right up against shore here in biloxi. there was martin savidge. this is the bay of biloxi. you see the big gap, that s the eye of the hurricane. that s the center of the storm. the highway 90 will be will have to be cleaned before we can access it again. we have a lot of power outages
many businesses have taken on water. a lot of that is assessment can t take place until the brunt of the storm has fully passed and then daylight kicks in, and that will give teams the ability to assess that situation and just to see how widespread the flooding situation and where the storm surge pushed water into, once we get that daylight, we ll be able to better assess that. we heard from martin in biloxi, that there was just one rescue, no reports of injuries. what are you hearing from officials there in mobile? reporter: haven t heard anything like that. we saw, you know, very few people out and about. so, you know, in the mobile area, we haven t heard any of these major reports. you never know in some of the outlying areas if there were people who trapped in homes, maybe wanted to try to get away in some kind of way. haven t heard anything major
biloxi. biloxi got the worst of it, maybe in the clear now. tell us what is happening there and officials had to get out and really find out more about the impact overnight. reporter: i hope nate is the last of it. i ve had enough of these hurricanes and i m sure many people have as well. they re doing better here. storm surge was the real concern. remember, this was a storm they feared might come across as a cat 2. in the end because of the speed across the gulf, it came in as a category 1. four or five hours ago it was really, really blowing and you saw how the water just came up. it surged out of the gulf of mexico, across u.s. highway 90, the one that runs along the coastline here, and then it got into some of the casino areas. biloxi is very big on that. and it looks like the water got heavily into some of the parking decks, also the public spaces, but we re told it did not get into any of the gaming areas. these casinos were devastated by