Bruce Bechard had done all the right things. The 67-year-old retiree had packed up some possessions, as well as his two black Labrador mixes, Sadie and Sally, and had fled his mobile home in Punta Gorda—well in advance of Hurricane Charley's wallop on August 13.
Three days after Charley had spread his misery throughout southwest Florida, Bechard returned to his trailer park in South Punta Gorda Heights expecting the worst. To his amazement, his trailer had survived the storm with only cosmetic damage, a borderline miracle in a mobile-home community where, he estimates, half the residences were wiped out.
But just as Bechard was unpacking his vehicle and counting his blessings, he suddenly realized his luck had run out—and so had his dog. Nine-year-old Sadie, a pooch Bechard describes as "easily stressed," had escaped the fenced yard. Without a trace.
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Pets in southwest Florida found their way to emergency shelters in many different ways. Some were trapped under debris and had to be rescued by emergency teams. Some were picked up on the streets after their homes instantly became kindling. Some were brought in by their owners who requested foster pet care until they could get their lives back together. And some were surrendered by owners who knew they couldn't care for an animal while scrambling daily for work, housing, and courage.
In all, 612 animals passed through our facilities in Charlotte County, whether at the temporary facilities we set up in Carmelita Park and the Promenades Mall or at the Suncoast Humane Society whose staff and volunteers were essential partners in our work there. (We also worked with the Humane Society of Manatee County to shelter and treat about 120 more animals, who were transferred from DeSoto and Hardee, a pair of rural counties that suffered massive damage.) Most of the animals in Charlotte County were transferred to the Suncoast Humane Society, where they were either sheltered or put into foster care until their owners could retrieve them. Some animals were sent to other shelters in Florida for adoption if the owners voluntarily surrendered their pets.
The pain that Charley caused is hard to quantify. The numbers—27 dead, $7.4 billion in insured loses, more than 30,000 homes destroyed or seriously damaged—do not begin to explain the grief experienced by residents in southwest Florida. Thousands of people are without their homes, their possessions, maybe even their jobs, and all they can do now is wait for insurance adjusters and contractors to inch their way into their lives.
Is it any wonder that many homeowners found some small comfort in reuniting with their pet, that one loyal constant in an otherwise chaotic life?
Of the more than 700 animals we cared for in southwest Florida, approximately 122 of them have been reunited with their owners as of September 3, including 102 in Charlotte County. Many others have been put in foster care, and some have been put up for adoption by owner request.
One of those reunions occurred recently at the Promenades facility when a man arrived there looking for his pets. His house had caught fire when the electricity finally came back online in Charlotte County. The pet owner didn't know it at the time, but local animal control had rescued his critters from the flames. The man was particularly overjoyed to reunite with his 20-year-old basset-hound mix; he was so overjoyed in fact that he gave a contribution right then to help other animals like his.
Another man, this one from DeSoto County, put his beloved 17-year-old Shepherd mix into foster care at the county's temporary shelter while he went about repairing his heavily damaged home. About a week later, the man appeared back at DeSoto, only to be told that his dog wasn't there. She had been transferred to the Humane Society of Manatee County. Clearly concerned, the man drove 25 drives to Manatee to find the well-behaved pooch patiently waiting for him. "As soon as they saw each other, they both were smiling," said one HSUS employee on the scene. "The man just instantly relaxed."
And then there was Sadie.
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Bruce Bechard spent a good deal of the night looking for Sadie. It was unusual for her to wander off, but he knew these were unusual times for both human and animal. No one was following a normal schedule anymore. Bechard spent an uneasy night worrying about his dog, and woke up the next morning hoping she had returned. She hadn't.
He immediately went to the Suncoast Humane Society to see if Sadie had turned up there. No luck. "I came home and didn't know what to do," Bechard said. "I would rather lose my house than my dogs…I was just devastated. It was hard to celebrate that my home was intact."
Two hours later, Bechard's mood would change dramatically. Suncoast called to say that Sadie had been picked up in Punta Gorda. Apparently the dog was wandering along Grapefruit Street, where Bechard walks Sadie daily. Authorities knew it was Sadie because Bechard had properly tagged his pooch.
Even though it was getting late in the day, Bechard jumped into his vehicle and fought through heavy traffic, congested even more because traffic lights were out, and made it to Suncoast a little after 5 p.m. "Sure enough, it was Sadie," he said. "She recognized me and began wagging her tail."
Frances Is Mostly All Wet
Hurricane Frances hung around Florida most of the Labor Day weekend, causing billions of dollars in damage and moving many residents to wonder what they had done to incur the wrath of mother nature. While Frances was wider and wetter than the more straight-forward Charley, whose winds blew quick and hard on August 13, Frances did not upset the animal kingdom as much as her Category 4 cousin.
As of Tuesday afternoon, September 7, there were only a handful of animal issues that rose to the level of our national Disaster Animal Reponse Teams, said Laura Bevan, director of The HSUS's Southeast Regional Office, who has been coordinating our efforts after both Charley and Frances. For the most part, Bevan said, local shelters and animal control agencies have been able to handle their problems. "Everyone's a little battered," she said, "but almost no one is needing assistance in a big way."
The exceptions are rare. In central Florida, Polk County had one, and possibly two, emergencies. A woman reported that her barn full of 300 rabbits was being overrun with floodwaters; several bunnies had already died, and she requested immediate relief. Bevan put members of the Bay Area DART team on the problem, since they know rabbit specialists in Polk County. Bevan was also chasing down a rumor in Polk that dogs were stranded on their own dog houses as floodwaters raged by.
Shelters in both Sarasota and St. Lucie counties also asked for help in relocating animals already housed in their facilities. Both shelters anticipate they will need the space for their own animal emergencies.
Bevan has called in four HSUS disaster and sheltering experts to help in St. Lucie, which suffered a direct hit from Frances, apparently upending some of the many mobile home communities in the county. Officials at the St. Lucie shelter believe, once their current animals are relocated, they can handle all the county's surrendered pets or pets put up for foster care; to relocate nearly 100 animals, The HSUS is helping secure space in out-of-state shelters.
Meanwhile, in Sarasota, The HSUS is also figuring out how to move about 75 animals who are being housed at the facility in the wake of Hurricane Charley. Like in St. Lucie, the animals will likely be moved out of state, where they will stand a better chance for adoption, Bevan said.
"Right now, almost all the shelters in Florida are full of animals or they need the space for their own animal emergencies," Bevan said. "We don't have any place to put animals, particularly since we want to find each one a good home. Some shelters outside of Florida have stepped up and offered to house the animals. We just have to find a way to get them there."
If Charley and Frances weren't enough, Floridians are now turning their attention to another menace in the Caribbean, Hurricane Ivan, a Category 3 storm that may or may not throw a dark cloud over the Sunshine State. The HSUS has national DART members on standby if Florida should prove to be unlucky a third time. "We're all feeling a little besieged down here," Bevan said. "We don't need another rain drop, and the shelters don't need another flood of lost pets."
If you'd like to donate to The HSUS's disaster relief efforts, both in Florida and elsewhere, please click here.
