McNair hopeful Reliant will be game-ready by Oct. 5

Posted by ESPN.com's Paul Kuharsky The Houston Texans might be able to play in a Reliant Stadium with a hurricane-damaged roof open, owner Bob McNair said today.
I will rarely take huge chunks of transcripts from interviews I was not part of and use them in this space. I understand how the reporters who asked the questions can feel like they get taken advantage of in such a situation.
But this seems to warrant an exception. So here is the text of McNair's interview from today, courtesy of the Texans public relations staff:

(on Hurricane Ike) "It's just such a tremendous tragedy. The breadth of the storm, it was as big as the state of Texas and we've never experienced anything like that. The people down in Galveston and Bolivar Peninsula really took the brunt of it, more than we. And our hearts go out to them because it's going to be very difficult and take them a lot longer to repair. All we have to do mainly is clean up the debris and remove trees and things of that nature. But many of them lost their houses and it's a real tragedy for them."
(on how hard it is to get back to the business of football) "Well it is difficult. This is a distraction and certainly one that should be a distraction because there is human loss involved. And we are very concerned about that. But everybody has come together and is working well. We appreciate the security, the police, the fire, the emergency personnel. All of those people have just been very responsive for everyone. But everybody is in the same boat. We are all experiencing the same situation with the loss of power; very few of us have any. And it's one of the things that; it's the old saying, "You don't appreciate the water until the well goes dry." And we don't appreciate the power until you flip the switch and nothing happens. And everybody takes it for granted, but there are a lot of people in this country that lived without power and without running water for a long time, and they did very well. So, I'm sure we'll work our way through it."
(on if Reliant will be ready to play in by October 5) "We've got engineers looking at it now and so far no one has noted any structural damage. But that's really what they're looking for. In terms of the roof panels, we don't know how long it will take to replace them. We'll just have to get further update on that."
(on if it is an option to play in the stadium with an open roof) "Well, I understand there's an issue with drainage; if it's open and you have a lot of rain, it's an issue. But if you have good weather like this, there's good possibility that you could just play with it open. Certainly that's what was anticipated. But I think the drainage is something that is a concern if you had a tropical deluge. Just two or three inches of rain in a very short period of time, that could create a problem."
on if he feels that getting back on the field is therapeutic for the team as well as the fans) "It certainly is for me. I'm tired of sitting around the house and feeling sorry for myself, as we all do. And the fact that we don't have power and we have trees crashed across the front of the house and all that sort of thing. The good news is there was very little loss of human life and the trees and everything else can be replaced. We just have to get on with it and it's nice to get out here and start thinking about football and sort of get away from some of the other everyday problems. That's one of the benefits of sports."
(on Reliant Stadium) "As with anything, we build things to withstand hurricanes. Well, what level? One, two, three, four or five? Most things aren't built to withstand a level five. This one supposedly, the panels and all that were supposed to withstand winds up to 100, 110 miles per hour. And so that was border line."
(on if he will ask them to rethink the design of the panels) "No, I think we'll get the report from them and the likelihood that you have this sort of thing happen again, really, is somewhat remote. Even though we are in hurricane country, the fact that this one came in almost dead center on us, they just don't repeat that sort of occurrence. I think that the stadium is strong, structurally. I hope they don't find anything wrong with it. I'm not aware of it and we'll look at these panels of kevlar, that's a very strong material. I think it's probably going to work out alright."
(on if the Texans would be able to play here if the panels had held up) "Well, we have power now and the air conditioning is working and other things are working. So, we're not aware of anything else that would have created a serious problem. Again, the engineers are looking for any structural damage and they haven't found it at this point but we'll have to wait and see."
(on if playing home games at Rice's stadium would be a possibility) "Well that's something to consider and we have discussed that. We've discussed that as a possibility if we could not play here. We would have to talk to them at Rice. But certainly that's a large enough stadium that that is a possibility. We, right now, are optimistic; at least I am, speaking for myself, that we're not going to find any structural damage. The damage is just going to be to the roof and that's something that we're going to be able to deal with and we'll just have to figure out what the solution will be."
(on how long it will take to fix the roof) "I have no idea."
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