By Karen Nelson, The Sun Herald, Biloxi, Miss.
BILOXI -- Bonnie died down to an area of low pressure before she hit early Sunday, trailing white caps and gusts of wind that kite-boarders in Pass Christian were able to enjoy early Sunday afternoon.
Though local emergency management officials said the system didn't appear to have pushed oil onto Mississippi beaches as feared, federal authorities said it may have caused oil to migrate north into the Mississippi Sound.
Retired Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen, the government's point man for the oil disaster, said he had crews checking Sunday to see if boom was still protecting sensitive marshlands or whether Bonnie had pushed it ashore in some areas.
Work to permanently shut down the gushing well also resumed Sunday at the well site.
Harrison County Emergency Manager Rupert Lacy said Bonnie did bring a higher surf to the beach and added about a foot to the projected high tide.
Rainfall early Sunday was from remnants of the storm, but totaled less than an inch along the Mississippi Coast.
"There were a couple of times that we had some heavy showers in Gulfport and Biloxi," Lacy said. "But nothing we couldn't use."
Hancock County Emergency Manager Brian Adam was out at 2:30 a.m. and 6 a.m.
"We didn't see anything," Adam said. "We fared well."
He said the storm did not push oily water into the marshes and there were no reports of flash flooding.
Fred Zeigler, senior forecaster with the National Weather Service in Slidell said even with 23 to 29 mph sustained winds out of the southeast, there was no reported flooding on the Coast, probably because it was low tide when Bonnie made landfall and the wind was not strong enough to hold the water in.
In Harrison County, Lacy said he stayed in touch with BP contractors over the weekend.
They had crews assessing the beaches late Sunday afternoon, Lacy said, but it was still too early to know what effect Bonnie had on the oil.
Lacy said it likely churned it, helping to weather it in the Gulf.
"That's kind of a good thing," he said.
The state National Guard resumed flights over the Gulf on Sunday and spotted tar balls and small patches near Gulf Islands National Seashore's Petit Bois Island to the east.
BP will have workers on the Harrison County beaches this morning, Lacy said.
He said the patties Sunday lacked the sticky consistency he has seen in the past two weeks.
In Gulfport and Long Beach, the tar balls were the size of quarters and half dollars and not consistent, "just here and there," he said.
Adam in Hancock County reported seeing about the same size and amount of tar balls as the beaches have been experiencing for the last several weeks. They've been reported daily between Washington Street and Lakeshore Drive.
Though the rain from Bonnie totaled less than an inch on the Coast, there were areas, like rural, west, central Jackson County near Vancleave that experienced 3 to 4 inches of rain, according to radar estimates from the Weather Service out of Mobile.
In a 12-hour period ending Sunday morning, northern Mobile County received 2 to 2 1/2 inches and areas of the Florida Panhandle got 3 to 4 inches.
Moving inland in Mississippi, National Weather Service radar indicated parts of Marion and Walthall counties got up to 7 inches as did parts of nearby Washington Parish in Louisiana.
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