Steadily, strikingly, the post-Katrina recovery progresses. It's a recovery Gulf Coast animals are counting on. 

New shelters. Customized transport vehicles. State-of-the art diagnostic equipment. Climate-controlled rehabilitation barns. Spacious dog kennels. Modern cat enclosures. Puppy and kitten nurseries. New roofs and septic systems. Portable buildings for quarantine and other purposes. 

These are some of the tangible evidence of The HSUS’s massive investment in the reconstruction of humane institutions ravaged by Hurricane Katrina two years ago. 

Taken together, they amount to more than simply the restoration of humane infrastructure.  For The HSUS, as for so many groups involved in response to the disaster, the great post-Katrina goal has always been the revitalization of humane work in the Gulf Coast states.

So far, The HSUS has sent $8.35 million in reconstruction grants to 45 facilities in the region. And that money has gone a long way. (For a closer look at the overall investment in relief, recovery and reconstruction exceeding $30 million, click here.) 

LA SPCA

A reconstructed LA SPCA will serve animals for decades to come.

In some instances, as with the Louisiana SPCA (LA SPCA) and the Humane Society of South Mississippi (HSSM), which suffered catastrophic losses when Katrina battered their vulnerable facilities, new structures have arisen to replace those obliterated by the flood waters. 

The metamorphosis of the LA SPCA is perhaps the most spectacular example of revitalization and renewal that has emerged from the wake of Katrina’s ruinous assault.  Once housed in a rundown building of mid-twentieth century vintage on Japonica Street in the poverty-plagued Ninth Ward, the organization now occupies the 12-acre Dorothy Dorsett Brown Louisiana SPCA Campus, with an $8 million dollar, 21,000 square foot central building. 

Completed in just five months, the shelter headquarters will soon be complemented by an Adoption, Education, and Veterinary Care Center, and an agility/exercise facility where animals and people can interact as part of the adoption process. The HSUS’s $4.5 million grant-in-aid package to the LA SPCA was crucial to its post-Katrina stabilization, the gradual restoration of its services, and the development of its new campus.

HSSM, site of a tragic loss of animal life when Katrina’s rising waters flooded the World War II-era armory bunker that was its shelter for half a century, has also made a great transition to an 8-acre facility on much safer ground. Like LA SPCA, HSSM can accommodate more animals and provide more services. The HSUS grant-in-aid package to HSSM has surpassed $1.5 million.

Humane Society of South Mississippi

Rebuilding along the Gulf Coast.

Smaller grants have had big results, too. 

Avoyelles, a cash-strapped parish on the route of escape from storms threatening the Louisiana coast now has a pet-friendly evacuation shelter. 

The Ascension Parish shelter renovated its puppy and kitten nursery, with the goal of increasing its adoption rate. An animal evacuation facility which exhausted all of its supplies during Katrina is now stocked with the equipment and material necessary to meet the next disaster. 

The Clearwater Wildlife Sanctuary in Covington, Louisiana facility has a new barn with housing for domestic and wild animals and a visitors center that gives children access to humane and wildlife conservation education. 

The Humane Society of La., in New Orleans, the Ascension Parish shelter in Sorrento, Louisiana, and the Washington Humane Society in Bogalusa, La. have new vehicles for animal transport.

What’s just as important is that, even as they recover and rebuild, dozens of Louisiana and Mississippi animal organizations and agencies are back at work, taking in and caring for animals, promoting adoptions, handling cruelty calls, conducting rescue and transport work, providing humane education in the schools, and aggressively championing spay and neuter efforts.

LA SPCA

A view into the new lobby of the reconstructed LA SPCA.

The restoration of crucial infrastructure is a strong beginning, a prelude to the reinvigoration of animal protection in the Gulf Coast states where, in some respects, the pace of humane work has lagged behind other regions of the country. Katrina revealed the fundamental challenges faced by humane workers in Louisiana and Mississippi to the broader animal protection community as well as to the general public.

Much remains to be done. Increased adoptions and save rates, more spay/neuter, enhanced operational capacity, better veterinary health care, superior animal care and control practices, and humane euthanasia, and expanded trap-neuter-release activities are all needed if the dozens of local societies in this region are to be successful over the long term.

Katrina’s impact was tragic, but her legacy need not be. In many respects, the catastrophe that was so unforgiving in its toll upon animals has set the stage for a renewal that would previously have been inconceivable. 

In the years ahead, The HSUS will continue to support the work of Gulf Coast organizations, aiding not only in their reconstruction but in their efforts to improve the lot of animals.