COSTA MESA, Calif. — The New Orleans Saints tell WWL-TV that their preseason game against the Los Angeles Chargers Sunday night will be played as scheduled despite the threat of Hurricane Hilary on the west coast.
The category-4 storm is expected to decidedly weaken as it approaches the United States, but it is still likely to bring high winds and a lot of rainfall to areas not used to that type of weather event.
“There’s gonna be a phone call today with the league and the stadium,” said Saints head coach Dennis Allen.
The situation is a twist on hurricane threats impacting the Saints, which usually come when the team is at home due to Louisiana being a hotspot for tropical activity.
The Saints would have only had two preseason games prior to the start of the season, but they’ve had workouts with the Chargers all week long, providing good competition and a break from the searing heat in Louisiana.
Hurricane Hilary has already forced Major League Baseball to adjust their schedule. They moved home games of San Diego Padres, Los Angeles Angels, and Los Angles Dodgers from Sunday to split Doubleheaders on Saturday.
Hurricane Hilary headed for Mexico's Baja California Saturday as the U.S., National Hurricane Center predicted “catastrophic and life-threatening flooding” for the peninsula and for the southwestern United States, where it is forecast to make land as a tropical storm on Sunday.
Officials as far north as Los Angeles scrambled to get the homeless off the streets, set up shelters and prepare for evacuations.
Hilary is expected to plow into the Mexican peninsula on Saturday night and then surge northward and enter the history books as the first tropical storm to hit Southern California in 84 years.
Early Saturday, the storm was centered about 260 miles west-southwest of the southern tip of the Baja peninsula. It was moving north-northwest at 13 mph and was expected to turn more toward the north and pick up speed.
The latest forecast track pointed to Hilary making landfall along a sparsely populated area of the Baja peninsula at a point about 200 miles south of the Pacific port city of Ensenada.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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