Stadium Damage

The damage to the roof of Reliant Stadium may force the Texans to play their next home game, the October 5th tilt against the Indianapolis Colts at Rice University. Rice stadium has a current seating capacity of 47,000, but it is expandable, all the way up to 70,000.

“Well that’s something to consider and we have discussed that,” said Texans owner Bob McNair. “We’ve discussed that as a possibility if we could not play here. We would have to talk to them at Rice. But certainly that’s a large enough stadium that that is a possibility. We, right now, are optimistic; at least I am, speaking for myself, that we’re not going to find any structural damage. The damage is just going to be to the roof and that’s something that we’re going to be able to deal with and we’ll just have to figure out what the solution will be.”

It is far from definite that one or more of the Texans home games will be moved, and Houston owner Bob McNair will do everything possible to insure the safety of his team and patrons.

“We’ve got engineers looking at it now and so far no one has noted any structural damage,” said McNair. “But that’s really what they’re looking for. In terms of the roof panels, we don’t know how long it will take to replace them. We’ll just have to get further update on that.”

With the Reliant Stadium roof being damaged, a possible solution would be to play in the open air.

“Well, I understand there’s an issue with drainage; if it’s open and you have a lot of rain, it’s an issue,” the Texans owner said. “But if you have good weather like this, there’s good possibility that you could just play with it open. Certainly that’s what was anticipated. But I think the drainage is something that is a concern if you had a tropical deluge. Just two or three inches of rain in a very short period of time, that could create a problem.”

With the damage from the hurricane, some people have questioned the structural integrity of the Texans football facility.

“As with anything, we build things to withstand hurricanes,” McNair explained to reporters. “Well, what level? One, two, three, four or five? Most things aren’t built to withstand a level five. This one supposedly, the panels and all that were supposed to withstand winds up to 100, 110 miles per hour. And so that was border line.”

McNair will not rethink the current format and design of the panels—

“No, I think we’ll get the report from them and the likelihood that you have this sort of thing happen again, really, is somewhat remote. Even though we are in hurricane country, the fact that this one came in almost dead center on us, they just don’t repeat that sort of occurrence. I think that the stadium is strong, structurally. I hope they don’t find anything wrong with it. I’m not aware of it and we’ll look at these panels of kevlar, that’s a very strong material. I think it’s probably going to work out alright.”

Aside from the missing roof panels, Reliant Stadium has appeared to get through the hurricane in pretty good shape, but final inspections haven’t yet been completed.

“Well, we have power now and the air conditioning is working and other things are working. So, we’re not aware of anything else that would have created a serious problem. Again, the engineers are looking for any structural damage and they haven’t found it at this point but we’ll have to wait and see.”