September 4, 2005
By Bernie Unti
Few children could conjure up a worst nightmare: On Thursday, following strict orders, an officer outside the New Orleans Superdome took away the last thing one little boy trying to board a bus had left -- his dog.
Such tragic scenes played out again and again during the awful days after Katrina hit land: people not being permitted to evacuate with their pets. Amid the chaos and tumult Katrina unleashed, numerous evacuees were forced to leave behind their cherished animal companions -- in their homes, in their offices, in hospitals, and other public facilities, and at rescue stations and shelters that do not permit pets to accompany their owners.
Even after losing everything you have, it seems, you can still suffer loss.
The separation of people and pets happens in every disaster, although in recent years, cooperation between The HSUS and the American Red Cross has led to some advances. The Red Cross has done much more to promote pet evacuation planning and to develop referral lists for those who are forced to relinquish a pet when disaster strikes. Moreover, The HSUS has been tireless in trying to persuade relief agencies and humane organizations of the need for animal-friendly shelter options in every community.
So far, however, rescue workers dealing with Katrina have barred pets from buses, shelters, and other facilities. And the Red Cross does not permit animals in its shelters. The harsh and depressing fact remains: In most disaster scenarios, people and their pets have to go their separate ways.
Little deeds of kindness
Even on the bleakest landscape of loss, there were a few bright spots. Louisiana State Treasurer John Kennedy, helping people board buses at an Interstate 10 overpass near Baton Rouge, intervened when some evacuees balked at being told to leave their pets behind. One woman told Kennedy, “I’ve lost my house, my job, my car, and I am not turning my dog loose to starve.”
Kennedy joined other volunteers in taking down the names of those leaving on the buses and asked the Louisiana SPCA to come out and collect the animals. The SPCA took two cats and fifteen dogs, including a mixed-breed dog Kennedy found tethered near the road with a unopened can of dog food next to him and a note that read, “Please take care of my dog, his name is Chucky.” All of the animals will be cared for until the evacuees are able to secure shelter in other cities and states.
Kennedy was not alone in his sense of duty to evacuees trying to hang onto their pets. Some 250 miles to the west, at the Houston Astrodome and the Reliant Arena, workers with the Houston SPCA were accepting hundreds of animals from evacuees, with the goal of eventually reuniting animals with the people who love them -- people who would never have given up their pets but for the violent disruption of their lives wrought by Katrina.
Houston SPCA officials expected to see the number of animals coming to its care soar into the thousands once rescuers got access to storm-devastated areas.
Safe Harbor
For at least some of those seeking to flee Katrina’s impact zones with their pets, the news was not all bad.
In a timely recognition of the value of animal life, and of the value that people place on their companion animals in good times and bad, an upscale hotel in Houston opened its doors to pets displaced by Hurricane Katrina. As the city absorbed an exodus of human and non-human refugees from Louisiana, managers at Houston’s Hilton Americas Hotel dismissed their usual restrictions, allowing hurricane refugees to bring more than 100 dogs, cats, birds, hamsters, and rabbits to safe harbor within its walls.
Houston’s Camden Property Trust, which is letting hundreds of evacuees live rent free for sixty days in some 600 apartment properties that were vacant when Katrina hit land, has also adopted a animal-friendly policy. "We've been inundated with people driving up in their cars with families and pets," said Richard Campo, Camden Property’s CEO.
In every disaster, stories emerge of practical reason, compassionate instinct, and wise judgment on the part of individuals attempting to do right by the afflicted. Things are no different this time around.
