LSU football coach Les Miles addressed a dingy cinder-block room full of reporters in the bowels of Tiger Stadium on Aug. 30 last year.The reason for the gathering was a football game, but the lone thought on most minds was a storm — Hurricane Gustav, churning toward land just a day’s time from landing on Louisiana’s coast.”I know that this storm is bearing down on us. I know that there are some serious considerations given in the state of Louisiana,” Miles said that day. “I can only tell you that we’re with you … Our guys are looking, like the rest of the state, to see how bad this storm will be.”The process was nothing new to Miles, who had to handle hurricanes Katrina and Rita in his first year in Baton Rouge while balancing the rigors of a Southeastern Conference schedule.”I was proud of the Katrina and Rita team. They went to the community, they brought things from their closets to donate and spent time in the PMAC,” he said at a news conference Friday. “There are a lot of fond memories from a team that handled change and adjustment as well as they did.”Gustav made landfall Sept. 1, delaying the Tigers’ second game against Troy until November, but football wasn’t the only sport slowed by Gustav.While the football team worried about when it could next play at home, LSU’s soccer and volleyball teams wondered when they could come home at all.”It was surreal to be going through it again just a few years after Katrina,” said LSU soccer coach Brian Lee. “There were those of us who couldn’t get to our families while we waited it out.”Lee and his then-No. 17 team, fresh off a win against Northwestern, watched Gustav make landfall from a Chicago hotel. That night, while Baton Rouge faced the storm, the Tigers defeated Loyola-Chicago, 2-1.”It put things in perspective,” Lee said. “In terms of athletics, the next time you play, you really get the sense of playing for school and state.”Soccer’s stay in Chicago lasted roughly five days, but it was an entirely different experience than the odyssey of the LSU volleyball team.The volleyball team spent more than a week on the road, taking two trips to Nebraska and playing two road games in Lake Charles after staying in Tennessee for the storm’s arrival.”There was a lot of fatigue and mental fatigue, and we were just trying to salvage that portion of the season,” said LSU volleyball coach Fran Flory. The volleyball team played the Creighton Tournament in Omaha, Neb., on Aug. 29 and 30 and could not get a flight into New Orleans.”We flew to Memphis, where we went to Graceland because we didn’t have much else to do,” Flory said.LSU assistant volleyball coach Steve Loeswick’s father owns a house in Lexington, Tenn., two hours east of Memphis, where the 20-plus members of LSU’s volleyball program waited out Gustav.”I was really scared at first. I cried one night,” said sophomore libero Lauren Waclawczyk. “I’m from San Antonio, Texas, where it rains once a month. I’ve never had to deal with hurricanes, and it was just a mind-changing  experience.”Waclawczyk’s experience is one Lee can identify with. With 20 players from all over the continent sharing a hotel in Chicago, Lee said he had to find a balance between Louisiana natives and out-of-state players.”It’s best to approach that individually within your team,” Lee said. “Some kids just needed to go spend a few days with family and set their eyes on them again.”Flory said her team’s biggest challenge was keeping a routine despite the circumstances. Union University, located just 27 minutes away in Jackson, Tenn., took the team in and volunteered their gym for LSU practices.”The only normal thing I could provide was we were going to practice,” Flory said. “I can’t say enough about Union. That really boosted our spirit and our faith in humanitarianism.”The scene back at home was a “hurricane party,” according to senior wide receiver Brandon LaFell. “Whenever it wasn’t raining, everybody was outside joking around … We had a barbeque pit outside, so we grilled,” he said. “When it got dark outside, everyone said it looked like ‘I Am Legend’ because you couldn’t see 2 feet in front of you.”LaFell watched movies on a laptop with senior linebacker Harry Coleman and senior running back Trindon Holliday, at least until the battery ran out. Junior kicker Josh Jasper and other members of the Tigers’ kicking unit took a parachute — made from a car tarp — out into the windy conditions.But it wasn’t all fun and games, as LaFell, a Houston native, experienced firsthand a problem many Louisianians can relate to.”It was kind of bad back home. My house got flooded,” he said. “Usually when there’s a bad storm, we all go to my grandma’s house. But it was a last-minute thing, and everyone couldn’t get there, so she ended up there by herself. The rest of my family got flooded too, so it was pretty bad.”After sustaining damage to his home, Miles evacuated to LSU’s Football Operations Facility, where he and his family spent most of the week with members  of his coaching staff and their families.”I’ll never forget that,” Miles said. “It was a very sad time for all of us, but there [were] some positives derived from having your family in a meeting room that you slept in that night.”—-Contact David Helman at [email protected]