re: Need advice on airport weather delays

Where are you flying internationally? I'd say your chances of being delayed that early in the morning are extremely low. Also if there's more flights to your international destination later in the morning you should be okay.

United currently does not have any waivers out so you'd be stuck paying a change fee, which is not worth it. If there is in fact a crew delay for that flight, you will likely know the night before. If that happens, you can probably change your flight to leave from Baton Rouge or Lafayette and still make that connecting flight instead of driving all the way to IAH