By Carrie Allan

Sunday, September 4, 8:40 p.m.

Dohnn Moret Williams isn’t going back to New Orleans. There’s nothing for him there now, he says. His former home is underwater, and he assumes all his possessions are ruined or stolen. His elderly father lived nearby, and while Moret Williams is hoping for the best, he’s assuming the worst. “We think he’s dead,” he says. His voice is tired and dreadfully blank.

With all that’s happened to him in the past week—the loss of home, friends, and probably family; the frightening journey out of the city and into the chaotic environs of the Houston Astrodome, his temporary new home—it might seem strange that today Moret Williams was crying out of relief and happiness. “I spent most of the morning crying when I knew I could come get him,” he says, gazing down at the dog at his feet.

He’s just reclaimed Sebastian, a large black cocker spaniel with red markings above his brown eyes, from his temporary shelter at the Houston SPCA. “Sebastian Moret,” Moret Williams specifies, emphasizing the dog’s second name, the one that defines the animal as part of his family. “I got no children. This here’s my baby.”

Black Bag Operation

Moret Williams and Sebastian left New Orleans together. Sebastian floated on an air mattress at his owner’s side as Moret Williams waded through polluted, neck-deep floodwater, pulling the mattress along with him. Man and beast managed to reach an elevated portion of Interstate 10, but the helicopters that were taking evacuees to buses weren’t allowing pets on board.

“There was no way I was leaving without him,” Moret Williams says, and so he did what so many have had to do in the past week: He improvised. He put Sebastian in a large black trash bag and begged him not to make noise.

Amazingly, the dog obeyed, though he did squirm at one point—a point that could have ruined the whole plan. “He bumped against the pilot,” Moret Williams says, a small smile creeping onto his face. “The pilot just goes, ‘I didn’t see nothing.’ ”

The pet owner’s black bag operation was secret enough to get the pair a one-way ticket to Houston on a bus that also didn’t accept animals. Sebastian made the whole trip with his nose sticking out the top of the bag. And when they arrived at the Astrodome on Friday, the staff of the Houston SPCA were waiting, ready to offer shelter to Sebastian while Moret Williams became one more evacuee looking to scratch out a new life. Today, he has plans to stay with his sister—and thanks to the SPCA, he has his baby back.

Lola's Story

Moret Williams is not alone in the extraordinary measures he took to keep his beloved pet safe. The Houston SPCA is full of pets of evacuees, and Jim Boller, director of shelter and field services for the organization, estimates that only half a dozen out of hundreds actually came "legally," meaning properly leashed or in crates. While a few of the bus drivers relented on the “no pets” rule—the adult great Dane being held at the shelter “probably drove the bus,” HSPCA volunteer Steve Rundell jokes—the majority of the animals who’ve arrived with the victims were stowaways, brought out of the city by hook or by crook by owners unwilling to leave them behind. The two ferrets arrived in the oversized pockets of a young girl. A parakeet was concealed in a makeup case. Chihuahuas and kittens came in women’s purses.

Then there was Lola. Earlier this week, Boller was helping with pet intake at the Astrodome in the middle of the night when the lovebird arrived. The young woman who brought the bird obviously hadn’t slept for days, and she mentioned having come from the Superdome. All she and her little boy had with them was a small plastic bag of personal items, and Lola—although the bird was not immediately apparent to Boller’s eyes. The woman told him, “I’ve got something for you,” and then pressed her breasts together slightly and rolled her shoulders in a way that might have seemed suggestive in another context. Lola the lovebird popped up out of her cleavage, having spent most of the bus trip tucked inside her owner’s bra.

All They Have Left

In spite of the dire straits many of the evacuees face, the SPCA has already helped 30 animals at the shelter reunite with their families. The reunited pets aren’t just dogs and cats and parakeets: One of the reclaimed animals was a chicken who’d been raised “from a peep” by the man who came to take her home. “This chicken obviously knew the guy,” Boller says.  He notes that many of the folks coming off the buses at the Astrodome were reluctant to let the SPCA take the animals in. “These animals are all that some of these people have left,” Boller says.

For a week now, the papers have been filled with stories of human suffering. In the face of such an enormous crisis, it’s easy to understand why many people choose to focus on the human side of this tragedy. Thousands of people are suddenly homeless and unemployed. Thousands have lost loved ones. Whole towns have been wiped off the map, and rebuilding will take years in the areas where it’s even possible. The needs for shelter and support are growing by the day, and the death toll in Louisiana and Mississippi is likely to rise by hundreds.

But Dohnn Moret Williams and his dog Sebastian, Lola the bosom-smuggled lovebird, and the hundreds of other animals carried out of New Orleans are a reminder of how much people love their pets, the extraordinary measures they will take to protect them, and what a great comfort animals can provide in the face of trauma. Animals are victims of this disaster as well, and disaster relief personnel heading into Louisiana and Mississippi to rescue the animals left behind are not just helping animals. They’re helping people, many of whom suddenly have nothing, to go on with their lives with a friend at their side.

Carrie Allan is the associate editor of Animal Sheltering Magazine at The HSUS.