If you went only by the images from eastern Florida, you would have thought Hurricane Jeanne had flattened both the houses and the spirits of the people who call the Treasure Coast home. But images are not reality.

The reality is that while many homes are damaged, and hundreds even uninhabitable, most east Floridians are finding ways to carrying on despite the trying circumstances. How do we know? The HSUS's National Disaster Animal Response Teams have been in the region since Hurricane Jeanne hit early Sunday morning, September 26, and they are finding that most shelters have successfully weathered the storm and that many of the animals originally fostered to these facilities have already been returned to their water-logged homes.

Unlike the aftermath of Hurricane Charley, when thousands upon thousands of homes were turned into matchsticks, the residents along the Treasure Coast have been able to move back into their homes, even if those structures need a tarp for the roof or multiple sheets of drywall for the interior. "These people have been through so much already," said Laura Bevan, incident commander of The HSUS's DART teams in Florida. "Over Labor Day weekend, they got slammed by Frances and now they have absorbed the brunt of Jeanne. Despite all this, most residents appear to be putting their lives back together with their pets still by their sides. That says a lot about their fortitude."

But even the strongest need a break. Case in point: The Humane Society of St. Lucie County. The shelter in Fort Pierce took a direct hit from Jeanne, yet suffered only minor damage—screens and awnings ripped apart, a roof blown off the storage room. Just as damaging, however, was the storm's impact on staff. Many of St. Lucie's employees are tired; some even need to deal with their own damaged homes. The staff, in short, needs a break not only to repair their workplace but also to piece their own lives back together.

That's where Bevan and the disaster teams come in. They have been working to move an estimated 30 animals from St. Lucie to shelters around Florida. The staff at St. Lucie has been performing evaluations on the animals, determining which ones are the most adoptable and which can withstand a potentially lengthy trip. Once those animals have been selected, most will be moved to the SPCA of Pinellas County; five dogs have already been moved to the Humane Society of Vero Beach and Indian River County, where they will be put up for adoption.

"Pinellas SPCA is one of the best in the state. They have great adoption rates, and for the most part they have been spared from the storms that hit Florida," Bevan said about the shelter located in Largo. "They got a lot of rain, but the hurricanes skirted to the east and west of them. They have the space and the skills to handle these animals. And just as important, the community has the means and desire to adopt animals instead of focusing exclusively on hurricane recovery efforts."

The Vero's Journey

The Humane Society of Vero Beach was originally going to serve as the staging area for the animals transferred out of St. Lucie, but Bevan and company decided that moving the dogs and cats to Vero, only to move them again to yet more shelters, was not an effective plan, for either the Vero Beach workers or the animals.

The workers at Vero Beach, after all, have had their hands full for the past several weeks, beginning on the Labor Day weekend when Frances hit the area. The shelter is new and large and modern, but at times in the past week, the facility has been stretched almost beyond capacity. Animals have been sheltered in almost every room in the facility; the animals had arrived there from hurricane victims, from Vero Beach board members, from Florida state emergency rescue workers, from employees, from all sorts of people.

Many of those animals are gone now, Bevan said, but the staff is wiped out. Burdening them with another 30 animals from St. Lucie didn't sound like a good idea, even with the assistance of HSUS staff and National DART team members who have been operating out of Vero Beach.

"Vero Beach suffered $50,000 in damage to its facility from Hurricane Jeanne," Bevan said. "Not only is the staff tired, but they have to deal with a damaged roof and fencing. Some staffers, of course, have to deal with their own damaged homes, too, so our National DART team is planning to stay here for awhile and help wherever we can."

At the same time, these National DART team members and HSUS staffers are not just staying put either, Bevan said. They're not taking the relative calm at Florida shelters at face value; they're going into hard-hit communities and determining if there are unmet animal needs. They're distributing pet food as well as flyers (in both Spanish and English), which provide a number for pet owners to call for assistance.

In the course of their neighborhood treks, these roving teams have already rescued four kittens and a young flying squirrel, Bevan said. The flying squirrel was taken to a wildlife rehabber in Martin County, but Bevan is not optimistic about the animal's chances. "The squirrel is so young and fragile, I just don't know if he's going to make it," she said.

No Act of Kindness Too Small

In the northern part of Indian River County, a DART team met an elderly man to help find his two cats who were thought to be roaming around his destroyed mobile home. The man, confined to a wheelchair, had spent the evening in the hospital when Jeanne struck. He returned to find only two exterior walls standing, the rest of his trailer just a heap of rubble.

Lloyd Brown, a member of the National DART team, saw one of the man's cats enter the remnants of the trailer through a doggie door. The feline immediately crawled under the rubble and made its way to what was left of the owner's bedroom, which was inaccessible to humans.

Not defeated, Brown grabbed a humane trap, placed food in it, and cleared out a spot near the bedroom to try to snag the wayward cat. By mid-day Friday, October 1, Bevan hadn't heard whether the cat was back purring in his owner's arms, but she said the teams will be checking the trap daily. There's still been no word on the other feline, she added.

In the meantime, Brown has discovered an old photo album in what's left of the man's trailer; the album itself was severely water-damaged, but Brown has been pulling out the salvageable pictures from within it and drying them out. "Lloyd says he's planning to return both the photos and the two cats to the man," Bevan said. "Lloyd's decided that the man is his personal project."

The Quiet After the Storm

Although some residents would no doubt argue the point, hurricanes Ivan, Frances and Jeanne were relatively merciful to the animal kingdom, at least when compared to Charley. "My sense is that Hurricane Jeanne, while causing a good amount of damage, didn't push people so close to the edge that they had to relinquish their animals. That's a real mercy to those pets, as well as to the people who rely on them for so many things."

Just as important, there doesn't appear to be any more hurricanes headed toward Florida in the near future. That's good news for Floridians, of course, but also welcome news for Bevan and her disaster teams. By her own estimate, Bevan says she has worked virtually without pause—perhaps a day off here or there—since August 10, when Hurricane Bonnie threatened.

"I can't wait to get home," said Bevan, a Florida resident herself, "and get a life again."

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