10:21 PM CST on Monday, January 30, 2006

By Doug Miller / 11 News

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The highest ranking official in Harris County was in New Orleans Monday checking out what has happened and what lies ahead not only in that city, but Houston, as well.

KHOU-TV

County Judge Robert Eckels was in New Orleans and says evacuees should plan to stay away a lot longer.

Judge Robert Eckels saw a couple of homes still standing, but for the most part, there was only destruction and a lot of rubble.

Eckels found that little had changed in the Ninth Ward since Hurricane Katrina struck.

That worries Eckels because a lot of people who think they're living in Houston temporarily, may be living in Houston a lot longer than they expected.

"The real question is many of those folks think they're coming home. They think this spring, March or the summer they'll be back here either in New Orleans or in some other place nearby. We wanted to see for ourselves the devastation of this city and what impact it's gonna have on both Harris County and the Houston area and the prospects of folks coming home," said Eckels.

The problem is that when the FEMA vouchers run out, people will not have found jobs or places to live.

One of the messages officials hope will go out after their visit to the devastated area is that if you are living in Houston as a result of the hurricane, you might want to find a job, housing and make plans to live a lot longer in Houston.

After his tour of New Orleans, Eckels met with Jefferson Parish officials for an informal discussion of what lies ahead for both cities.

The Sheriff presented Eckels with a honorary deputy's pin, just a small token of thanks to the people of Harris County for their generosity after the devastation of Hurricane Katrina.

What struck the delegation from Houston was what they saw, but also what they did not see, not a lot in the way of reconstruction efforts.

"I see things like this muffin pan that almost give you a snapshot of someone's life that was just interrupted," said Eckels, "You can tell from the condition of this pan and everything else here, that it's going to be a long time."

"This means we're going to have a lot of new Houstonians for a long time, so we gotta integrate our community, we gotta provide jobs, we gotta grow our economy. We gotta bring people in and we gotta welcome them because it looks like more people are gonna be there. It looks like more people are gonna move to Houston," said Houston delegate Guy Rankin, with the Harris County Housing Authority.

If you're a Katrina evacuee still living in a hotel or motel you have until midnight Monday to call 1-800-621-FEMA to have FEMA continue footing the bill.

When you call, you'll be given an authorization code that is needed to extend your stay.

FEMA will stop paying for motels on February 7th without that prior approval.