Texans preparing for possible Category 2 hurricane

[Toro]

Getty Images

The Texas coast is casting a leery eye toward the Gulf of Mexico where Tropical Storm Marco and Tropical Storm Laura are prepared to deliver an unprecedented back-to-back punch.

Marco, downgraded from a hurricane, won’t have much affect on the Houston area as it soon will make landfall in Louisiana. But Laura could make landfall in Southeast Texas as a Category 2 hurricane.

That has the Texans, like the Saints, getting a Plan B in place.

“We’ve talked a lot about that,” Texans coach Bill O’Brien said Monday, via John McClain of the Houston Chronicle. “I pray that it doesn’t hit Houston. Looking at the way we’re tracking it, (vice president and chief information officer) Jeff Schmitz sends out multiple emails per day letting us know where it’s at.”

The Texans are scheduled to practice Tuesday morning and Thursday night. They are off Wednesday and Friday.

“We do have plans,” O’Brien said. “If something happens where we can’t practice, we’ve got to adjust. The most important thing is the safety of our players and their families and our coaches and their families and the support staff and everything else. That’s how we would handle it.”

It was almost exactly three years ago — on Aug. 26, 2017 — that Hurricane Harvey made landfall on the Texas coast as a Category 4 storm. It was the wettest tropical cyclone on record in the U.S. and caused devastating flooding and damage in Texas, including Houston, and forced the Texans to relocate to the Dallas area for several days after a regular-season game in New Orleans.