06:47 AM CST on Tuesday, December 20, 2005

By Shern-Min Chow / 11 News

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Even though the wind and rain didn't get us, the impact of two hurricanes is still being felt here in Houston

A flood of new residents could make it necessary to create new City Council districts and re-draw all the boundaries.

Houston's growing pains are everywhere from housing to driving to voting.

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There may be more city council districts in Houston's future.

"When the population of Houston increases to 2,100,000, the city has to mandatory, add two new additional districts," said former City Councilman Carroll Robinson.

Over a quarter century ago, that requirement was part of a legal agreement following a lawsuit to improve minority representation on City Council.

Since then, there have been five At-Large positions and nine single member districts, often drawn to encompass majority black or Hispanic populations.

"The irony of this, although many single member districts have been elevated from the African-American and Hispanic communities, so to have African-American and Hispanics won at large - none the less the agreement is the agreement

A big question? How to count the people? We are in between a major census and have a large fluid population.

"We don't know how many from Katrina and Rita are still in the city,- probably at least 100,000 or 150,000 minimum," said 11 News political expert Bob Stein.

But sooner or later, the city will add two new council seats and it seems redistricting is usually a painful process.

"The beauty of this plan is that you're not taking away, your adding to," said Robinson.

Yes, but to get those extra seats it is likely minority voters will be taken away from existing minority districts..

"Redistricting is never very easy," said Stein.

Stein pointed out the recent Republican redistricting of congressional seats and all the reaction that triggered.

The goal is to redraw these lines, get the plan cleared by the Justice Department without getting tied up in a lengthy and costly lawsuit or shedding too much political blood.