If there is one thing a hurricane can prove, it’s that even the most seemingly invincible structures are susceptible to damage.One year ago today, Hurricane Gustav ripped through Louisiana and Texas, attacking Baton Rouge in what many experts call the worst hurricane to come through the city.The effects of the hurricane are still being felt today. The LSU Natatorium still has a blue tarp on its roof as the repairs on the structure just got under way last week, and repairs to the Carl Maddox Field House were recently completed.The hurricane powered through campus with the force of a safety blitzing an unexpecting quarterback from the blind side, leaving LSU athletic facilities with more than $540,000 in damage, according to senior associate athletic director Mark Ewing.And just as many big hits have been seen in Tiger Stadium’s history, the massive structure was the one to take the biggest hit in the storm, taking in around $153,000 worth of damage.Both the state and FEMA will be paying for the damages to the facilities.That money does not include the awnings of Tiger Stadium because they belong to the Tiger Athletic Foundation who paid to fix them.”The awnings were completely destroyed, and because they came down, they destroyed a lot of the seats,” said senior associate athletic director Herb Vincent.The seat repairs cost about $36,000, but Ewing said the majority of the damage to Tiger Stadium was water damage to elevators and escalators, which cost around $64,000 in repairs.Some of the seats are still being replaced in the stadium before next Saturday’s home opener, and that work will continue throughout the season, according to Eddie Nunez, associate athletic director of operations and project development.Nunez said the metal bleachers currently in place are not the bleachers that were in place before the storm, but they fit perfectly for the time being.”We had seat parts to replace … but the company that makes the seats is around a six to eight week time frame to make and ship them,” Nunez said. “But we had to wait for the insurance to pay for it.”Football took another blow across the street from the stadium, as nearly $115,000 of damage was left from Gustav to the team’s Football Operations Center, most of which was to the fence surrounding the outside fields.But football wasn’t the only team hit, as a few facilities on the north side of campus took considerable roof and siding damage.The Natatorium’s temporary roof cost about $22,000, while the permanent roof is estimated to cost nearly $50,000 upon completion.The Maddox Field House also had extensive damage, as the roof cost more than $100,000 dollars to be replaced, and no estimates were available for the siding that was damaged, which was recently fixed, according to Ewing.In addition, Ewing said the Bernie Moore Track Stadium took about $22,000 of damage to the press box roof and around $16,000 worth of repairs to the track and field because of helicopters landing to bring people into the PMAC, which was being used as an emergency shelter.Nunez said one of the main reasons the track is going to be replaced next summer is the wear and tear emergency operations vehicles put on the surface. “That put a real stress on the track,” Nunez said. “We had some concerns heading into that year about replacing the track, but after the storm and all the activities centering around it — landing helicopters and driving ambulances — we decided it would be best to resurface it.”With all these repairs done or in the process of being completed, the Athletic Department is left to hope for the best in the future.”You repair it to full capacity, and then you just have to hope that you don’t have another hurricane come through,” Vincent said.————Contact Andy Schwehm at [email protected]