Lessons from Hurricane Katrina might mean disaster victims won't have to endure what George and Sharon Peterson did eight years ago.

After the 1997 Red River flood destroyed their East Grand Forks, Minn., home, the Peterson family, like many others, spent a year in a Federal Emergency Management Agency mobile home.

"I was grateful that we were given that to use because we had nothing else," Sharon Peterson said. "I think apartments or empty available homes would be much preferred."

If a major disaster hits North Dakota in the future, officials will be better able to house evacuees, said Rick Robinson, a planning and operations specialist with the state Department of Emergency Services.

The hurricane response has helped the state identify its housing resources, he said.

Earlier this month, state officials put together a plan for Katrina refugees to live in subsidized housing around North Dakota.

About 1,500 available housing units with space for about 3,000 people were identified. Clare Carlson, state director for the federal Agriculture Department's Rural Development agency, said it was the first time officials had detailed knowledge of empty housing that would be readily available.

"The fact that we've had to pull together a database of who has what, and especially in our case, who has housing, will allow us to have a quicker response should a large disaster like that befall us," he said.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency said last week that it had stopped scheduled evacuation flights from the Gulf Coast to other states because most hurricane survivors had no desire to move so far. Only about 40 were confirmed in North Dakota, staying with family or relatives.

Carlson and Robinson said the effort to identify available housing was still valuable for the future.

Although some housing that currently is empty might be occupied later, "you would have the same ratio of housing. That housing stock would be there in some way, shape or form," Carlson said.

Carlson lived in Grand Forks in 1997, and was not able to return to his home for three weeks after the flood. He and his wife lived with relatives.

Having hundreds of housing units immediately available around the state might have been helpful after the flood, "but I think we had less critical need" than Katrina victims, Carlson said.

"The scale of the two disasters was so different," he said.

Peterson said staying in the community after the Red River flood had advantages such as camaraderie with other victims, but her family likely would have been willing to go to another city for better housing.

The mobile homes "weren't adequate as far as the insulation and that," she said. "They were cold. And … our front door never closed properly, so if it rained it would rain in and we had wet floors."

North Dakota's role in the hurricane response has helped officials in other ways, Robinson said, including valuable experience in responding to requests through the Emergency Management Assistance Compact. That's an aid agreement among nearly all the states.

"It also taught us how to work more closely with the Voluntary Organizations Active in Disaster, a network of nonprofit organizations that provide relief," he said.

It's not the first time emergency officials have learned lessons from a disaster. A January 2002 train derailment and chemical spill on the west edge of Minot that killed one man and injured hundreds led to improved systems for alerting people.

Paul Shuler, an emergency services specialist with the Red River Valley Chapter of the American Red Cross, said communication among various state and nonprofit agencies improved after the Red River flood, and likely will improve more now.

"Every incident we have, we learn from it and it makes it easier for the next one," he said. "It's something you hope you never use, but at least you have it if you need it."