Animal Disaster Teams Working to Reach Thousands

[Animal 0]

Animal Disaster Teams Working to Reach Thousands Devastated By Katrina

2005 AP Photo/John Bazemore
August 31, 2005

By Loren Drummond

When the word came last week to evacuate New Orleans prior to Hurricane Katrina's landfall, Fidelma Rigby and her husband, both physicians, were not among those medical personnel assigned to stay on emergency rotation at Charity Hospital. They began their preparations to leave on Friday, planning to stay in Atlanta, where they had used a kennel for their two dogs, Mark (a beagle) and Shawn (a sheltie), during previous hurricanes. This time, when they called the kennel, the kennel could not take Mark and Shawn. They were full. Neither could the hotel where the Rigby's planned to stay. The Rigby's were forced to make a heartbreaking choice.

"The choice was to evacuate with the dogs, and keep them in the car. We were so afraid that the heat would get them. So, this is the first time we boarded up the house, and left them in the upstairs bathroom with a lot of food and water," said Rigby. "We expected to be back in two or three days. If I'd known, we'd have taken them and driven and driven and driven and they'd be safe. We just didn't know."

Now, like so many people who make their homes in Mississippi and Louisiana—where one of the worst hurricanes in U.S. history continues to wreak havoc in its aftermath—the Rigby's are waiting to see if help will reach Mark and Shawn in time.

Mobilized and Ready for Action

The HSUS National Disaster Animal Response Team (DART) has been preparing for a massive response to Hurricane Katrina since word of its path was reported last week. But the aftermath effects of the storm, and flooding in particular, continue to frustrate rescue efforts trying to reach the areas with the most losses.

HSUS animal response units are in Jackson, Mississippi, and on the western edge of the impact area, coordinating with other rescue efforts and ready to move into the worst-hit regions to respond to the hundreds of pleas for help from pet owners. The HSUS disaster teams are recommending that people with stranded pets continue trying to contact their local authorities.

More than 30 experienced HSUS rescue staff and volunteers trained in animal rescue from 12 states are coordinating with state officials, federal agencies, and other rescue organizations to start evacuating animals out of the most-affected areas. They'll also begin establishing pet-friendly shelters and delivering supplies, resources and medical assistance.

With the call from Louisiana's Governor to fully evacuate New Orleans, HSUS prepped teams to move into Baton Rouge, as soon as access permits, to coordinate pet-friendly sheltering for evacuees with the Louisiana SPCA.

Days End Farm Horse Rescue traveled Tuesday from Maryland to join the HSUS rescue effort, adding their truck and horse trailer to the fleet of rescue-specific vehicles that are designed for sheltering animals—pets, horses, and livestock—and responding to relief needs in disaster situations.

"A horse cannot stand for days on end in water," Allan Schwartz told CNN before leaving the Days End ranch to join HSUS's Eastern unit. "If [hooved animals] are standing in water for great lengths of time, it creates hoof problems, leg problems. That water is generally contaminated, so it is important to get them out of it as soon as possible."

Schwartz is taking special slings to lift injured or trapped horses, as well as fresh water, harnesses, and leads for horses who have been let loose. Basic supplies like harnesses and crates for smaller animals are essential supplies that DART keeps stocked and ready so that it can respond quickly to disasters.

Early Steps Saved Hundreds

The HSUS has been working to raise awareness about disaster planning and response, and many states and organizations have been instituting plans. Mississippi recently instituted a disaster response plan, and HSUS has been working with the state to staff and carry out the plan.

The Louisiana SPCA evacuated all the animals from its shelter over the weekend according to its disaster response plan, which had been developed over the course of several tropical storms and hurricanes in past years. The shelter houses animals on the now-flooded Japonica Street in New Orleans.

The HSUS has been asked to help place adoptable animals evacuated into adoption programs in Texas. Working with the Houston SPCA, rescuers saved an estimated 300 animals from the nightmarish conditions in post-hurricane New Orleans.

The HSUS has been working with local shelters to find homes to adopt pets that people and families may be forced to give up. "It's always hard," said Laura Bevan, who is directing the Western units of HSUS's National Disaster Animal Response Team. "But sometimes it's necessary when large numbers of people have lost their homes."

"I spoke with a gentleman today who evacuated with four cats and thought he was going to have to euthanize them, but we found them all a home in Galveston, Texas," said Lou Guyton, director of HSUS's Southwest Regional office in Texas. Guyton is directing the Western units of the HSUS relief efforts.

Continued Flooding Prevents Access

Flooding can be one of the most difficult disaster situations for rescue teams to manage.

"Flooding cuts places off. Flood water literally has oil, sewage, gas, and chemicals in it. This flood water is going to be extremely dangerous in a short period of time," reported Bevan. While waiting to gain entrance into the most devastated areas, Bevan and the animal rescue teams are focusing on getting an effective distribution network in place.

"Access is the issue," she says. "We have the people and the resources; we just need to get them in."

Reports of Wildlife, Pets Lost

Across the waters of Lake Pontchartrain and the scenes of flooding in New Orleans, in Slidell, Louisiana, police Captain Rob Callahan reported to CNN that approximately 100,000 fish lay aground in his neighborhood, nearly four miles inland from the lake shore.

Reports about the toll to wildlife sanctuaries in the flood region have been slow in coming. Six dolphins from a Gulfport aquarium, Marine Life Oceanarium, were first evacuated to hotel swimming pools and then later moved to facilities in Florida. A number of seal lions were also being evacuated to Florida on Wednesday. The HSUS is investigating the deaths of at least three sea lions from the same facility that were featured on CNN and other news channels both Tuesday and Wednesday.

"We would like to see all these animals, and others like them, evacuated to safe havens out of the disaster zones," says Naomi Rose, a marine mammal scientist with The HSUS.

Other estimates of the impact on wildlife, captive wildlife, and pets lost to the ravages of Katrina will take more time to assess.

"The total number of animals lost to the storm will be difficult to detect for months, as it was in the case of the [Asian] Tsunami," she said. "This will probably end up being worse than Hurricane Camille in 1968. So many more people and animals were in the path of the disaster. People had the illusion they were safe, evacuating to 17 and 20 feet above the water level when the storm surge came in at 25 feet."

But for the Rigby's, and so many others, it is now clear that few in the path of Hurricane Katrina were safe from its effects. Tens of thousands of people and animals are still waiting for rescue and assistance. The Rigby's are safe now in Georgia, but they wait, too, desperately clinging to the hope that animal rescue teams will be able to reach Shawn and Mark in time.

What You Can Do

"This is going to require a massive, long-term effort to help the animals and the people impacted by Hurricane Katrina," said Bevan.

The costs associated with The HSUS rescue efforts are expected to vastly exceed the organization's previous major disaster responses, which include aiding the animal victims of last year's Asian tsunami and responding to the four hurricanes that hit last year. Emergency contributions are desperately needed. Please click here to make a donation now to our Disaster Relief Fund.

Loren Drummond is the Associate Editor of hsus.org.



http://www.hsus.org/hsus_field/hsus_disaster_center/