Titans keep eye on Katrina’s affect on family
NASHVILLE — A handful of Tennessee Titans had a hard time concentrating on football Monday with Hurricane Katrina forcing families to evacuate or bunker down to ride out the storm.
Early reports indicated that Bay St. Louis, Miss., took the brunt of the storm, and that’s the hometown of safety Tank Williams. He said his family was safely out of the way in northern Mississippi.
“They were going to sit through it. When it went from a Category 3 to a 5 overnight, pretty much everybody got out of Dodge,” he said.
Williams was worried about flooding and downed trees and was anxious for someone to return and assess the damage. He has been busy watching TV, scanning the Internet and on the telephones to keep track of how everyone is faring.
“My whole town is on the water, and my house is probably five miles from the beach if that. Pretty much all my area is close to the bay. That’s why everyone’s pretty much wanting to see how the water came up and how much damage there is,” he said.
Defensive end Antwan Odom planned to call his family after practice to check on them. His home is Bayou La Batre, Ala., on the Gulf of Mexico about 15 minutes from Dauphin Island, so his family huddled in a church in Mobile, Ala., that was serving as a shelter.
He asked reporters about updates and was shocked to hear of reports of flooding in Mobile.
“Wow, I hadn’t heard (anything) about that,” he said.
Rookie receiver Roydell Williams’ family lives 20 minutes west of New Orleans. They loaded 32 family members into a seven-vehicle convoy to Houston.
“My family got out. That was the main thing I was worried about. Once they gave me the word on that, that kind of eased my mind,” he said.
He talked with his relatives Monday morning, and they told them they were tired from the drive but were safe.
Coach Jeff Fisher said players with families affected are dealing with the situation.
“There is going to be a lot of unanswered questions here in the next couple days until power is restored and they’re able to get in touch with people. Unfortunately, we all have to deal with it and you can only imagine what the Saints families are going through right now,” he said.
———
FRESH AIR:@ With the forecast including a tropical storm warning for Tennessee on Tuesday, the Titans took advantage of intermittent drizzle and practiced outside Monday afternoon. Their timing was good with the wind picking up at the end of practice.
“Tomorrow is going to be a little tough on us, so it was good to go out and get it done today,” coach Jeff Fisher said.
———
ROSTER CUTS:@ The Titans released 10 players Monday and must release one more player to reach the league-mandated 65-man roster by 3 p.m. CDT. The list of players released included the last undrafted rookie quarterback still playing that position — Shane Boyd of Kentucky.
Coach Jeff Fisher said it wasn’t an easy decision with the cuts.
“We’ve got a number of guys that can’t practice today. You need to give yourself a chance to play,” he said.
Fisher said Boyd did a nice job when he had a chance, but the Titans wanted to give Chris Redman more playing time. Redman has the advantage of having NFL experience, going 3-3 as a starter with Baltimore.
“That doesn’t mean to say we don’t bring Shane back. With the numbers it is hard to keep four quarterbacks going into the last week, especially where we are,” Fisher said.