Hurricane Ida | New Orleans Saints must move to Texas

Displaced by the hurricane Idathe New Orleans Saints returned to work, Monday, regarding 500 miles from their training site, at the home of another NFL team.

Posted on August 30, 2021

Stephen Hawkins
Associated Press

Saints players and staff, along with regarding 120 family members, moved to North Texas ahead of the storm that made landfall south of New Orleans on Sunday as a Category 4 hurricane with winds of 240 km/h, leaving the whole region without electricity.

Head coach Sean Payton revealed the team will practice through Wednesday at AT&T Stadium, home of the Dallas Cowboys. This comes ahead of a scheduled break before the start of the season.

“We left behind apartments, condominiums, houses. These are all material things. Nonetheless, a lot of people are still there, Payton revealed. We had a team meeting, to discuss some topics. And then, you know, I think to some extent being able to train will be good for everybody, because from a distance you can’t do much. »

The Saints are then expected to return to training next Monday, although Payton said it would be unrealistic to believe it will be at their facility in Metairie, Louisiana, even though early reports from there indicate they have overall weathered the storm pretty well.

Payton added that he hasn’t heard anything yet regarding the season opener, scheduled for Sept. 12 once morest the Green Bay Packers at the Superdome.

“Obviously we’ll have a plan B. And, you know, there’s probably a lot of other things from a priority standpoint that are more important to our city,” Payton said.

We plan to start the season once morest the Packers, and the question then would be where the game will take place.

Sean Payton, head coach of the New Orleans Saints

The office of Louisiana Governor John Bel Edwards has described the damage to the region’s power grid as “catastrophic”, and officials have warned it might be weeks before power is completely out. restored.

When Ida engulfed the Gulf of Mexico with a projected trajectory toward the Gulf Coast region, the Saints’ third and final preseason game scheduled at the Superdome last Saturday was called off.

They therefore only played two preparatory games and had to travel for the last training sessions before the final reduction of the squad to 53 players on Tuesday.

The arrival ofIda occurred 16 years to the day following Katrina devastated New Orleans. The Saints had been forced to move for the entire 2005 season, settling in San Antonio while playing home games there and Baton Rouge. They had also played a “home” game at Giants Stadium, New Jersey.

The Saints compiled a 3-13 record in 2005, but with the Superdome quickly rebuilt, they bounced back to a 10-6 record and won the National Conference South Division title the following year.