The curfew has been lifted, most of the debris is cleaned up and most power has been restored. And on Saturday night, one of the last major pieces of Baton Rouge’s restoration process will be complete when football returns to Tiger Stadium after a two-week hiatus. LSU will take the field against North Texas on Saturday at 7 p.m.Hurricane Gustav, which made landfall Sept. 1, caused LSU to postpone its Sept. 6 contest against Troy until Nov. 15, and Hurricane Ike left this weekend’s game in limbo until Wednesday.LSU officials considered several sites for the game including Texas Stadium in Dallas, the Georgia Dome in Atlanta and the Superdome in New Orleans. Athletic Director Joe Alleva announced on Wednesday that the game would be held in Baton Rouge.This season is the second season in four years the Tigers altered their schedule to accommodate a hurricane. In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina and the impending landfall of Hurricane Rita, the Tigers rescheduled two home games in 2005, and played another 2,000 miles away from home in Arizona. The Tigers and the Mean Green were slated to open the 2005 season on Sept. 3, but after Katrina wreaked havoc on the Gulf Coast the game was rescheduled to Oct. 29 — a matchup the Tigers won, 56-3.  The 2005 game against Arizona State was moved to Tempe, Ariz., and the Tigers played their first home game of the season on a Monday night against Tennessee — two days after Hurricane Rita made landfall in Southwest Louisiana. “I don’t think that there’s anything that is as distasteful as a natural disaster that hits our area and can become routine,” said LSU coach Les Miles. “In many ways, the inconvenience and the distress to the state are not routine.”Although Miles said he saw parallels between the two storms, he finds Gustav to be a more trying factor on his team than the 2005 storms. “Rita and Katrina — though it really affected our state and us peripherally — our off-the-field issues were dealing with other concerns … like those people who were more adversely affected than Baton Rouge,” Miles said. “This one is dealing with more personal issues.”The team stayed in Baton Rouge during the storm, and many were affected by the winds and rain it brought.”It was chaos,” said senior defensive end Tyson Jackson. “The wind was picking up really fast, and the garage at my apartment was coming off the ground.”Jackson lives on Burbank Drive and said his apartment was without power for several days. He lived with teammate, sophomore safety Chad Jones, in the days following the storm’s landfall.”The day of the storm, it was pretty rough,” said junior running back Charles Scott. “It was windy. A lot of people weren’t used to it because we have a few guys that aren’t from Louisiana.” Scott lives on campus in the West Campus Apartments and said he was thankful he did not receive any major damage to his residence.”We were a little inconvenienced without power, but we were OK,” Scott said. “A lot of people got it a lot worse, so we weren’t complaining at all.”Senior defensive lineman Marlon Favorite, a New Orleans native, said he was happy his hometown was spared the brunt of the damage from Gustav but was still upset there was major damage anywhere. “Three years ago we really took a toll from Katrina,” Favorite said. “New Orleans missed it this time, but now where we’re posted at got it, so it’s stressful.”Players who were on both the 2005 and 2008 teams said Miles’ leadership through the storms helped the team on and off the field. “Coach Miles has really done a good job of keeping [Gustav] out of our minds,” said junior tackle Ciron Black.Black said he was happy Miles helped the team focus because “the [Bowl Championship Series] really doesn’t care” if a team is affected by a disaster.  The Tigers also said they felt an obligation to play this weekend to help with Louisiana’s morale.”If I get on Facebook sometimes, it’s, ‘Hey are y’all playing a game?’ or like ‘Good luck’ or ‘Play for us’ or ‘Do good,'” Black said. “Little things like that make you want to go out and play even harder because you’ve got the whole state behind you rooting you on.”Miles said he is finally happy to be back in Tiger Stadium following the damage caused by Gustav and hopes Hurricane Ike ends up somewhere it will not affect people. “Everybody is excited about Tiger Stadium,” Miles said. “Being at home is wonderful.”Although the Tigers are ready to play, some say the city may not be equipped to handle a game.Metro Councilman Ulysses “Bones” Addison said the games may mean “total chaos” for East Baton Rouge Parish, according to The Advocate. Baton Rouge Police Department Spokesman Sgt. Don Kelly disagreed with those assertions.”We’ll have a full contingent of officers working the same intersections doing the same things we do every weekend,” Kelly said.Kelly also said the department was unsure of other factors surrounding the game.”We don’t have any idea of what to expect in terms of how many people will be there or what the circumstances will be, but we’ll deal with whatever the situation is,” Kelly said.—-Contact Johanathan Brooks at [email protected]