Hurricane Ida evacuation causes extended travel time for LSU football

Hurricane Ida continues to wreak havoc on the opening week of college football. LSU, who is set to travel to Los Angeles to take on UCLA next weekend, was forced to evacuate Baton Rouge due to the impending threat of Hurricane Ida’s arrival. The team left last night and ran into insane amounts of traffic.

LSU will stay in Houston before leaving for UCLA

At around 9:30 p.m. last night, LSU hit the road to head to Houston for the week. The Tigers will spend the week in Houston to continue practicing ahead of their opening game. As LSU traveled to Houston, evacuation traffic significantly slowed down the trip. After the team’s 9:30 p.m. departure Saturday night, it arrived in Houston at 8 a.m. Sunday morning.  The team buses were on the road for over 10 hours on what is usually a trip that takes four hours, according to Sports Illustrated’s Ross Dellenger.

The #LSU football team left Baton Rouge at 9:30 pm last night and only just arrived at 8 am this morning in Houston, where they’ll stay and practice this week.

Because of evacuation traffic, it took the team buses more than 10 hours to make the normal four-hour trip.

— Ross Dellenger (@RossDellenger) August 29, 2021

UCLA, LSU’s first opponent of the season, got its season underway on Saturday with a 44-10 victory over Hawaii. As LSU now spends the next week away from home, UCLA will have game experience under its belt as it waits for LSU to arrive in Los Angeles. UCLA just earned its first non-conference victory in head coach Chip Kelly’s tenure with the win over Hawaii. The Tigers will fly to Los Angeles on Thursday.

Hurricane Ida has impacted multiple programs

In addition to LSU, Tulane, located in New Orleans, has also been forced to relocate ahead of Hurricane Ida’s arrival. The Green Wave will relocate to Birmingham, Alabama for the week before hosting second-ranked Oklahoma to open the season. The game, scheduled to be played at Tulane, remains on as originally scheduled at this time.

The New Orleans Saints have also been forced to evacuate. New Orleans has evacuated and the Saints will relocate to AT&T Stadium, home of the Dallas Cowboys, in Arlington, Texas for the next couple of days.

LSU is ranked 16^th in the preseason AP Top 25 poll. The Tigers went 15-0 and had one of the nation’s most electric offenses in recent memory when they won the national championship in 2019. Last season, LSU finished at 5-5. As the Tigers look to right the ship this season, these are certainly less than ideal circumstances.

Ida is expected to hit land over the next couple of days.