Hurricane Elena had come ashore in Mississippi with 125 mph winds and tides 12 feet above normal. Hurricane warnings which had extended to the south were shifted to the west, covering about 300 miles of coastline. “She’s like a sneaky little halfback eluding all the tacklers,” said a spokesman for the Mississippi Emergency Management Agency.

Vandals were spray-painting some easily accessible walls in downtown Lawrence, particularly an area between Massachusetts and New Hampshire streets, north of Eighth Street. Cleaning and repairing the work of vandals in general was costing the city more than $20,000 per year, and according to Fred DeVictor, the city’s director of parks and recreation, a large part of that cost was cleaning up graffiti.

No major problems had been reported at area lakes during the recent Labor Day weekend. An estimated 75,000 people visited Lake Perry, while Clinton Lake had 24,615 visitors.