METAIRIE, La. -- Twelve years ago this week, New Orleans Saints running back Deuce McAllister was where many members of the Houston Texans now find themselves -- safe but displaced and feeling disconnected from his adopted hometown as it was ravaged by Hurricane Katrina.

He was also glued to his TV set.

"I'll never forget, me and [teammate/New Orleans native] Michael Lewis were in our room, just watching CNN and flipping back through all the channels, just how they're saying that the levees are broken," said McAllister, who grew up just a few hours away from New Orleans in Mississippi. "You gotta remember, this was before Twitter had taken off, even before Facebook. ... And we're like, 'Man, what can we do? How can we help?'"

Just as the Texans now find themselves in Dallas following massive flooding in the wake of Hurricane Harvey, the Saints had evacuated in August 2005 to Oakland, California -- where they practiced for a few days, then played their fourth preseason game against the Raiders.

Football might have provided a familiar routine and distraction for players, but McAllister said "it's not really possible" to take the mindset of, "Well, we're just gonna focus on football."

"Their mind and focus goes to the community," McAllister said. "I know for the guys, they have the means to be able to be taken care of. They have the means to be out of the way. So for them, it's always about the people who have cared for you. Not only your family and friends, but the fans. Whether it's the officer or security guard you saw at the Dome or the restaurant you went to, those people that help you on a daily basis that were not necessarily a part of your immediate family.

"Those are the people that you think about, because you know that a lot of those people are check to check. Some of them had the ability to get out of town, a lot of 'em didn't. And now you're just in a sense of, 'What can I do? How can I help? That's my city, that's my home.' You look at what J.J. [Watt] is doing, and it's just, we've been there.

"Unfortunately, we've been there."

The Saints flew to their next temporary home of San Antonio after their Thursday night game at Oakland. And McAllister was on a flight back to New Orleans and Mississippi by Friday afternoon.

Players were given three days off to try to get their lives in order that weekend -- and McAllister, Joe Horn and Fred McAfee were among those who also took time to visit evacuees and see how they could help.

"I knew that I had to give back, I knew I had to do my part," said McAllister, who was escorted into New Orleans with assistance from some Salvation Army workers (and joined by former Sports Illustrated writer Michael Silver, who chronicled the trip).

"Because my family, I was able to get 'em out. I knew that we had the ability to give them food and shelter and clothes. My personal stuff, I would get to that at some point. But the people that didn't have, the people that lost everything, that were looking for a meal, medicine, diapers ..." said McAllister, who admitted he can understand why people looted for those items. "So for us, it was trying to give those people the comfort."

McAllister said he will never forget some of the scenes from that visit to New Orleans. From the triage areas set up in the airport to the people being rescued by helicopter -- or refusing to be rescued while waiting for loved ones to return -- to the man who asked him if they beat the Raiders.

"We were with the national guard, and they were rescuing. There was a man and his grandson, and he literally asked me, 'Did we win?'" McAllister recalled. "Man, that should be the farthest thing on your mind."

However, McAllister and other Saints soon learned that a lot of displaced people were looking for them to be a distraction or a return to normalcy. They heard that from a lot of people as they continued to visit shelters in San Antonio and elsewhere.

The Saints actually won their first game that year at the Carolina Panthers before an unfathomable season-long nomad existence finally caught up with them and they finished 3-13.

The Saints spent that entire season training in San Antonio, being bounced around from the Alamodome to high school baseball fields to an empty public works building, while they split their "home games" between New York, San Antonio and Baton Rouge. Hopefully the Texans will be able to return home much sooner.

Unfortunately, the Saints have gotten used to temporary hurricane evacuations over the years. They had to relocate to avoid storms in 2004, 2005, 2008 and 2012. In 2008, they spent an entire week practicing in Indianapolis to avoid Hurricane Gustav before returning home to host the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in Week 1 of the regular season. (They won that game, too, by the way.)

In 2012, they left a few days early for a preseason game in Tennessee and practiced in Cincinnati.

In each case, Saints coach Sean Payton said he found it was important to give the team enough time to get their families and personal business secured before turning the focus back to football.

"I think the larger challenge is not necessarily your own immediate circle or team, it's their family and all the things that go along with, whether you're renting a property or you own a place that has damage," Payton said. "In each case, it's easier to handle [the football part]. I mean, this group can travel and quickly we can get operational as long as there's a place to practice and meet."

Ironically, the Texans were just in New Orleans this past week for joint practices and a preseason game with the Saints. After Hurricane Harvey hit the Texas Gulf Coast, the Saints offered whatever assistance and expertise they could provide.

Harvey has also hit close to home for several Saints players who are from the Houston area, as well. Players such as Adrian Peterson, Thomas Morstead and Chris Banjo had family members come stay with them. Craig Robertson started a relief fund and sent out a plea for assistance on social media.

Morstead and Banjo were the only ones available to the media on Monday, and both said all of their loved ones are safe -- though some of their homes have taken on water.

"It's sad," Morstead said. "I hate to compare anything to Katrina, but there's a lot more people in Houston, so there's gonna be a lot of -- hopefully not the life lost that happened here, but just a lot more people that are gonna be affected.

"I really feel bad for the Katrina people who left here and went to Houston -- and it's happened again. You know, it's tough. Sometimes when something happens, it's a little sect of the community and everybody rallies around to help out with what they have. And I think it's gonna be a little tougher because everybody's gonna be affected."