Hurricane Charley hit Florida on Friday, August 13, as if it carried a grudge. The storm not only defied all expert predictions by rapidly developing into a Category 4 'cane, but it also took an unexpected right turn into the heart of Charlotte County—an area dotted with dozens of trailer parks and populated with thousands of senior citizens who had little time to evacuate.
This unfortunate confluence of factors meant that hundreds of people were immediately homeless come Saturday morning, their domiciles either reduced to matchsticks or rendered uninhabitable because of damage and/or power outages. Many hid under mattresses to weather the 145-mph winds and horizontal sheets of rain.
An accounting of Charley's fury is still continuing, but as of early Monday afternoon these were the numbers: 17 dead, more than 2,300 people living in temporary shelters, an estimated $11 billion in insured damage, and nearly 1 million residents without power. Countless companion animals, livestock and even wildlife are among the victims, too, although exact numbers are impossible to come by at this time.
Damage to roadways, telephone lines, utility poles and even cell phone towers have made information sharing sometimes difficult. While this may prevent many in the affected area from securing the vital information they need, it hasn't stopped The HSUS and local humane organizations in the region from setting up animal relief centers, arranging for emergency shelter space, securing veterinary supplies, and calling in tractor trailers to provide not only veterinary space but also alternate power sources.
These meticulously coordinated plans didn't just fall into place; the Humane Society of United States carefully coordinated these plans with animal shelters, state agriculture officials, and animal control officers all over Florida.
You could say that the Florida animal community's rapid response owed a debt to Andrew—Hurricane Andrew, whose wallop in 1992 taught everyone some valuable lessons in pre-planning and coordination.
The Scene in Southwest Florida
The focal point for emergency animal care in Charlotte County is a temporary facility in a sports/recreational complex in Punta Gorda called Carmelita Park, which is about a mile away from the county's Emergency Operations Center. The county ordered a mobile veterinary team to begin operations there on Monday, August 16, since officials believe that most vets in the damaged region are without power and fresh supplies.
Activated earlier by the state of Florida, The HSUS's Disaster Animal Response Team (DART), which includes nearly 30 volunteers from around the Sunshine State, which has set up tents in Carmelita Park to serve as an animal services area. It's here that volunteers will care for animals brought in by the public and by rescue teams. The temporary facility will also take in found animals as well as those pets voluntarily surrendered by displaced owners. Horses and livestock will be placed on a series of baseball fields across the street and held there until they can be sent to temporary shelters. The goal, of course, will be to reunite all lost animals with their families.
"It's important for people whose homes are uninhabitable to find temporary shelter for their animals," says Anne Culver, director of disaster services for The HSUS. "We can't emphasize this enough: Please don't leave your animals behind. If your house is not habitable for you, it's not habitable for your pets. Some of the saddest scenes we encounter are animals left behind by owners."
Because the Carmelita Park facility may need to deal with hundreds of pets over the course of the next few days, none of the animals will be able to stay there for longer than a couple of hours, says Laura Bevan, director of The HSUS's Southeast Regional Office (SERO), a disaster-response veteran who is leading the organization's charge in southwest Florida.
The idea, Bevan adds, is to quickly move the animals to the Suncoast Humane Society in Englewood, just across the county line in Sarasota County. Suncoast was on the western side of Hurricane Charley and received very little damage; it has moved its adoptable animals to other shelters in the state to leave extra room for lost or abandoned pets. Suncoast will also serve as a funnel for veterinary supplies into the Punta Gorda facility.
The real hero to date, Bevan notes, is a member of the Sumter County DART team, who owns a research company and was able to send down several vehicles, including an air-conditioned tractor-trailer, an air-conditioned RV with several rooms, another trailer with tools and generators and even a horse trailer. "There are sleeping, cooking and full bathroom facilities in the two air-conditioned vehicles," says Bevan, "so we will have people on site 24/7."
If that weren't enough, DART teams from all over the state have agreed to lend a helping hand, each operating in conjunction with the Florida Emergency Support Function-17, the state's official disaster response for animals. Those cooperative DART teams even include one from Okaloosa County, located in the western-most reaches of the Florida panhandle.
Such cooperation and coordination, notes Culver, reflects the work that The HSUS has put into building Florida's emergency animal responses since Hurricane Andrew. "Local DART teams in Florida," Culver says, "have been developed through HSUS training and support in the years since Hurricane Andrew. This preparation paid off with many locally trained personnel being able to help their neighbors."
That, in turn, may have saved yet more tragedy in a storm that has caused too much already.
When Disaster Strikes
Hurricanes, tornados, floods and even man-made disasters such as terrorist attacks are, by nature, unpredictable and sometimes deadly. Pet guardians are often caught unprepared, making it difficult for humans and animals to evacuate quickly and safely. No matter how unlikely a disaster may seem, planning for the worst is the best way to keep pets and their guardians safe and secure during an emergency situation. If a disaster occurred tomorrow, would you be ready? Guardians have a responsibility to their pets to confront a crisis situation on their animals' behalf. Emergency preparedness includes creating a disaster kit and finding a animal-friendly emergency shelter. For more information, use the links below to read about preparing for, and surviving, the unexpected.
If you'd like to donate to The HSUS's disaster relief efforts, both in Florida and elsewhere, please click here.
