The Houston Texans may face disruption to the start of the 2017 season, as Hurricane Harvey – which devastated parts of coastal Texas on Friday with the strongest winds of any hurricane to make landfall in the United States for more than a decade – continues to produce enormous rainfall even as it has weakened to a tropical storm.

Houston has only really been affected by the outer rain bands of Harvey – it is almost 200 miles from the centre of the storm – but that has been more than enough to bring significant concern. A rain gauge close to the Texans’ NRG Stadium recorded 2.4 inches of rain in 30 minutes on Saturday night, with another 2.8 inches in an hour between 5am and 6am local time on Sunday. In total, almost 13 inches of rain fell in 12 hours from 8pm Saturday to 8am Sunday – some parts of Houston recording more than even that – and the danger is far from over, because Harvey has essentially stopped moving and just keeps on dumping water. If anything, it is currently expected to drift closer to Houston early next week.

As a result, flooding that has already claimed multiple lives – and, according to one eerie warning issued by the National Weather Service, has rendered some areas impassable even to emergency services – is only due to get worse. Houston could be facing the worst disruption from a hurricane in a major city since Katrina devastated New Orleans in 2005.

In a remarkable coincidence, the Texans happened to be in New Orleans this weekend to play the Saints in their preseason dress rehearsal, though they sat many key starters in an eventual 13-0 loss. The Texans then theoretically have a home preseason game against the Dallas Cowboys on Thursday, a game that the Cowboys have already offered to move to AT&T Stadium. With the current forecasts as of Sunday morning all suggesting that Harvey’s painfully slow movement and devastating rainfall will continue for several days, it seems certain at the time of writing that this offer will be taken up.

Beyond that, the spectre of the stadium not being ready for the Texans’ home opener might well loom large at this rate. Houston in general could be a literal disaster area for weeks, after what is forecast to be total rainfall as much as 40 inches in some places. Already, the Brays Bayou that runs close to NRG Stadium has burst its banks, reaching its highest level since 2001 – when Tropical Storm Allison similarly stalled over southeastern Texas and caused record flooding in and around Houston. The stadium was under construction at the time, and the only reason construction was not badly disrupted was because the stadium happened to be planned without any underground sections as a cost-saving measure.

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The stadium has taken hurricane damage since, from Hurricane Ike in 2008. That caused five panels of the stadium’s retractable roof to be destroyed by high winds, and a home game with the Baltimore Ravens to be moved to the middle of the season. Both teams involved were forced to play for 15 consecutive weeks as a result, and the Texans played all of their home games with the roof open. The Saints famously played an entire season of road games after Katrina hit three years earlier, such was the damage to the Superdome.

Fortunately, even if the stadium (or, perhaps more likely, the city) isn’t ready for some football on 10 September, rescheduling is very easy in this instance. That’s because the Texans’ opener happens to be a divisional game with the Jacksonville Jaguars. Therefore, that game could be moved to the Jags’ EverBank Field, with the return game in Week 15 moved to Houston. That would also give the Texans a three-game spell on the road to start the season, providing a chunk of time for the area to recover before an October 1 game with the Tennessee Titans. (Who, of course, are also a divisional rival and as such can also easily pull off a home-and-home swap in the unlikely event it’s needed.)

No danger, then, of the Texans going effectively without a bye. But they might have to get used to living out of a suitcase. Meanwhile, as bad as Deshaun Watson was against the Saints, Houston residents have far bigger things to worry about than whether their team just squandered two first-round picks.