From HSUS staff writers
As New Orleans residents make their first tentative steps back into the devastated city, The HSUS and other national groups have started taking steps to turn their rescue and sheltering operations over to Louisiana SPCA (LA SPCA), the group that has been contracted for more than 50 years to provide animal control for the Big Easy.
The Louisiana Department of Agriculture & Forestry earlier mandated that all rescues based out of the Lamar-Dixon temporary shelter in Gonzales end on Friday, September 30, but the state said that LA SPCA and other credentialed groups could continue to run rescues and bring the animals to two veterinary clinics in Orleans Parish until LA SPCA gets its semi-permanent facility in Algiers ready to accept animals. The 45,000-square foot facility is expected to open on Friday, October 7. In the meantime, if the vet clinics overflow with animals, rescue teams can take critical cases to the Lamar-Dixon site, which is expected to remain open until mid-October.
The gradual withdrawal of staff and volunteers deployed to Louisiana and Mississippi from national animal groups marks the beginning of the end to an unprecedented event: The rescuing, sheltering and transporting of nearly 8,000 animals from the areas affected by Hurricane Katrina, which made landfall (for a second time) on August 29, obliterating much of the U.S. Gulf Coast. Some believe it may have been the largest animal rescue operation in U.S. history.
"There is still considerable work to do in Louisiana, and to a lesser-extent Mississippi," says Wayne Pacelle, president & CEO of The HSUS, "but as people move back into New Orleans and start to reassemble their lives, the state believes that the Louisiana SPCA and the teams it credentials should be able to handle the job. The HSUS will continue to help stablize LA SPCA's new operations so that the group can carry on its mission in New Orleans for another 50 years, and longer."
The Last Days of Lamar-Dixon
The Lamar-Dixon Expo Center in Gonzales has served as the staging site for animal rescues and as the temporary shelter for rescued pets since the first days after Katrina hit. Since September 1, more than 5,000 animals have been moved through the complex system established at Lamar-Dixon—from the decontamination baths at the intake area to the vaccination shots at the "export area," where animals are processed before leaving on transport trucks to other shelters.
Dave Pauli, director of the Northern Rockies Regional Office and incident commander at Lamar-Dixon, hopes to shut down operations at the Gonzales facility by October 10, but says it may stretch a few days beyond that date. Lamar-Dixon has already scaled back its animal sheltering operations from three barns to two, and Pauli expects the animals currently occupying those two converted horse barns—439 dogs, 149 cats, and five rabbits—to be shipped to other shelters before the departure date.
Lamar-Dixon, however, could play an important role as LA SPCA prepares to open its semi-permanent facility in Algiers, located across the Mississippi River on higher ground that didn't suffer from the kind of flooding that devastated New Orleans. The converted Algiers warehouse did suffer roof damage during Hurricane Rita, which The HSUS has been helping to patch, so in the meantime, Lamar-Dixon will serve as a back-up shelter for LA SPCA if credentialed teams rescue more animals than the two veterinary clinics in the city can handle.
Once operations finally end at Lamar-Dixon, The HSUS expects to ship the remaining food and supplies to the LA SPCA for its use. The HSUS has also pledged money to help LA SPCA rebuild its facility in the Ninth Ward in New Orleans, which was wiped out by both Katrina and Rita.
Beyond the Big Easy
The picture in Calcasieu Parish in southwest Louisiana is coming into sharper focus as assessment reports trickle in. The parish, home to Lake Charles and Vinton, has seen some of the worst damage wrought by Rita. An animal control officer in Vinton called The HSUS on Monday, saying that more than 100 animals, both pets and livestock, were roaming the city. The animal control officers said the city, still difficult to reach with large supply trucks, needed food for these animals, which The HSUS was working to provide. Similar reports of roaming animals had come from Lake Charles as well.
On Monday, the shelter at Lake Charles was operating again, with an estimated 100 animals occupying cages there. Disaster teams were staging from the shelter, but were limiting their activities to feeding and watering animals in place. Because water had receded and people were expected back into the damaged parish soon, the responders on the ground felt it would be easier to maintain animals in place then to rescue them and put them through rescue-and-reunion process.
Still, some rescues have taken place. Teams have rescued animals believe to be in critical conditions as well as those trapped in dangerous conditions. The HSUS has deployed three members of its Disaster Animal Response Team to the area, and they spent part of last week helping a wildlife rehabilitator rescue nearly 50 animals, including one loose otter, a 23-year-old horse with cancer, a blind bobcat (and his friend, a raccoon), and 12 sugar gliders.
A number of cattle reportedly died in the wake of Rita, according to www.thehorse.com, but horses were mostly spared. The web site reported that "only a handful of horses have been found dead, mainly due to the fact that storm surge waters receded more quickly after this storm than after Katrina."
At this point, responders in the Lake Charles/Calcasieu Parish area do not expect to call in reinforcements to help rescue or shelter animals.
Report from Texas: A Shining Star
As in southwest Louisiana, animals in Texas appear to have weathered Rita with fewer casualties, and with fewer problems, than they suffered from Katrina. Disaster experts agree that the secret to success in the Lone Star State was preparation: not only forceful evacuation notices that encouraged people to take their pets, but also a state animal response network that was ready to roll as soon as the storm passed. Before Hurricane Rita hit the coast, an estimated 20,000 pets and 10,000 livestock were evacuated, according to the Texas Animal Health Commission.
"Texas did a really good job of spreading the word about taking your pets with you," said Lou Guyton, director of the Southwest Regional Office and the leader of The HSUS's response in the areas affected by Rita.
Since Rita passed, the Houston SPCA has been spearheading animal rescues in the heavily impacted coastal areas. The shelter reports evacuating 57 dogs and 28 cats from the Humane Society of Southeast Texas in Beaumont, and conducting rescues and assessments in Chambers, Liberty, Jefferson, Hardin, Orange, and Newton counties in Texas. The animals are being brought back to the Houston SPCA for medical treatment and care.
The HSUS, along with staffers from the ASPCA and the United Animal Nations, assisted the Texas Animal Control Association (TACA) in moving more than 300 owned pets from a temporary shelter in Nacogdoches to another temporary one in Lufkin, about 30 miles away. Guyton and Jay Sabbatucci, the regional coordinator in The HSUS's Southwest Regional Office, secured the new location for the animals.
Every animal at the Lufkin shelter is expected to be reunited with his or her owner, though a handful will need to wait a little longer than others. As of Monday, about 100 animals remained in the shelter—the rest had already been retrieved by their owners. For owners who have lost homes in the storm, Lufkin animal control will provide sheltering for their pets until they are in a position to retrieve the animals.
The gold star for all its work in the Lone Star State after Rita must awarded to the Texas Animals in Disaster System (TADS), which TACA and The HSUS have worked for years to develop. TADS fosters relationships between animal welfare officials from across the state, so that they can mobilize quickly and efficiently when disasters hit.
Cathy Clark with TACA, speaking from the Lufkin shelter, said that the program has been a contributing factor to the organized animal response following Rita. She also commended the response of the national organizations in providing support to the operations on the ground.
"Everyone has really worked in harmony," Clark says, "It really impressed me."
Though TACA has been working to provide supplies and support, like horse and dog food sent to Polk County, the jury's still out for some communities that were affected by Rita. Jasper, an East Texas town that took a direct hit from Rita, was one of the hardest hit, but TACA has yet to receive any request for help.
Mississippi Teams Clean Up—and Prepare for Future Disasters
After a weekend of more animal transports and more happy reunions between owners and pets, The HSUS disaster response teams in Mississippi were focusing on cleaning up the site at Hattiesburg on Monday—and on making the next disaster response easier for all involved.
Only ten dogs remained on site at the Forrest County Multipurpose Center, and incident commander Laura Bevan of The HSUS's Southeast Regional Office hoped to find a temporary shelter for those animals by the end of Monday. The rest of the thousands of animals housed and cared for at the staging grounds have moved on, having been either reunited with their owners or transferred to other shelters and rescue groups for care.
Despite the dwindling numbers on site, reunions continue to happen daily. Several owners who've come to Hattiesburg to search the kennels have instead spotted their animals in the photo albums created by the Mississippi teams. The photos are tied to records which detail where each animal has gone, so owners who've spied their pet's portrait have been able to touch base with the organizations that took in their animals for ongoing care.
With the operation at Hattiesburg coming to a close, Mississippi pet owners searching for their animals should try both www.Petfinder.com and www.Petharbor.com. They can also call the 888-722-3106 hotline run by the Mississippi Board of Animal Health. By the end of this week, that number will no longer be staffed full-time, but it will allow a caller to leave a voicemail, which will be returned by staff who can help pet owners track down missing animals.
HSUS staff and volunteers on site have spent the past several days caring for the few remaining animals, and helping with reunions as owners trickle in to search the kennels. They've also been cleaning and breaking down literally thousands of animal crates on site, as well as cleaning out the barn stalls, which served as animal holding areas.
Many tons of supplies were donated by companies, organizations, and individuals from all over the country, and many of those supplies are still on site. Perishable supplies are being sent to sites in Waveland and Gulfport as well as into Louisiana. Nonperishable items—such as crates, bowls, leashes and the like—are being loaded up for transport to areas around the state so that they'll be available in the case of a future disaster.
"Not just in Mississippi," says Bevan, "but say there was a disaster in Texas. These caches of supplies will be stored under the authority of the Mississippi Board of Animal Health, so if they're needed in Texas or another state next time, they'll be closer and more accessible."
Bevan, who's worked all kinds of disasters during her many years in animal care, says the Katrina response in Mississippi has climbed to the top of her list of most challenging responses. Having worked the response to a series of four hurricanes that hit Florida last year, Bevan says that while those storms probably impacted more animals than Katrina did in Mississippi, Florida was far more prepared to deal with them.
Not only is Florida accustomed to getting slammed by storms, but the shelters that exist there are, for the most part, much larger—making it easier for groups to work together to transfer and hold large numbers of animals.
"In Mississippi, we've had great help from some of the local groups, but most of the shelters that exist in Mississippi are really small. They serve smaller communities and so their animal space is more limited," Bevan says. "That made finding a place to put all the animals who'd been affected much more of a challenge—and made the help we got from out-of-state groups more essential."
HSUS staffers Loren Drummond, Carrie Allan, and Tim Carman contributed to this report.
