At least for now, Nebraska shelters will not be called upon to house evacuees from areas hard hit by Hurricane Katrina. Nebraska and other secondary relocation spots were put on standby Wednesday by the federal government, meaning they may be called upon later or they may never be used.

“I suspect the situation is going to change hour by hour, day by day,” said Gov. Dave Heineman, shortly after informing the mayors of Omaha and Lincoln and other state emergency officials of the decision.

The Omaha Civic Auditorium had been prepared with cots, phones, showers and other necessities to handle 500 evacuees and St. Mark’s United Methodist Church in Lincoln was ready to handle 200.

Both of those shelters — the two primary ones prepared in Nebraska for hurricane evacuees — should keep everything ready for the next week or two as the situation is evaluated, Heineman said.

Other possible shelters can be identified, but it is not necessary to prepare them for evacuees, the governor said.

“We’re very early in the stage of recovery,” Heineman said. “We all need to be prepared to be flexible.”

The standby order, delivered to governors Wednesday morning over a conference call directed by Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff and Michael Brown, the head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, will last at least a week, Heineman said.

“It is our understanding that many evacuees prefer to stay closer to home as they resolve issues regarding property, employment, finances and the safety and status of family members,” Heineman said.

That doesn’t mean there aren’t hurricane victims in Nebraska.

It is estimated by the Nebraska chapter of the American Red Cross that between 200 and 300 people from the Gulf Coast region have relocated to Nebraska, at least temporarily, on their own, said Heineman’s spokesman Aaron Sanderford. Many of those people have relatives in the state or other ties to the area that brought them to Nebraska.

If any evacuees are brought en masse to the state, they are expected to be processed through Omaha. Thousands of people who lost their homes in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama because of Hurricane Katrina already have been relocated to a number of states, most of them in the South.

While Nebraska continues to await official word from FEMA about housing evacuees, other organizations are reaching out. The People’s City Mission in Lincoln planned to take a bus to Louisiana and Mississippi to bring back up to 200 people.

For now, any Nebraskan who wants to help should donate money to help the ongoing relief efforts, Heineman said.