Hurricane Katrina Rescue Diary

	September 09, 2005

Friday, September 09, 2005
From Debbie Hill, director of Rescues & Investigations

John and Pomeranian friend

Mississippi Team
Our animal trailer moves between Gautier (near Pascagoula) and Gulfport daily, while our daily rescue outings in trucks continue to spread westward.  Today our patrols went into the Waveland/Bay St. Louis area, where we met with local law enforcement and animal control officials.  There, rescue efforts were separated into large-animal and small-animal teams.

While on rescue patrols, we speak to everyone we see, asking if they‘ve seen lost pets.  Usually citizens flag us down.  One house contained five cats and a dog with an injured leg that was possibly fractured.  Another house had a pigeon coop behind it, which certainly must have been submerged under water; amazingly, seven pigeons were still alive.  

Brian rescues a dog from a damaged home

We’ve been told of pets stranded in homes and on roofs, but when we arrive to the reported locations and enter the boarded-up buildings to search inside the muddy homes, we’re sometimes not finding the pets.  Many people are taking in lost pets and relinquishing them to us when we arrive in their area – hopefully this population of strays explains the empty houses we’re encountering.  

Brandy and Carmen log a new arrival.

We continue to house the pets in our climate-controlled trailer and transfer them to Hattiesburg, Mississippi whenever it becomes full – a trip that takes several hours round-trip.

Brandy tries to convince a cat to come with her.

We keep noticing how the bark on trees has been rubbed off from the force of water and debris.  The bark is missing off the tree trunks a good 10 or 12 feet high.  We spoke to someone today who barely survived the flood only because his modular home unexpectedly floated off the foundation during the storm – otherwise, he would have been submerged.

Carmen and Mississippi residents

A sight that troubled me today was that of a leash tied to a tree; a few feet away from the end of the leash was a small, dead dog.  Thankfully, we are finding more live pets than deceased. 

Last night on the way back from Waveland to Gautier, we came across two horses running in a brush-filled athletic field behind Biloxi High School. The horses were very spooked but Kyle was able to calm them down. The owner arrived and said his enclosure had been damaged by the storm, so he had tried to use the baseball field as a paddock, but he thought someone had let the horses out because of fear they were tearing up the sprinkler system. Our team managed to help the man secure the horses for the night.

More than 200 animals were received Friday by our Mississippi team; this was our largest single intake day yet.  Since we arrived on August 31, we've rescued more than 415 animals.

New Orleans Team: Brett and Tim

New Orleans Team
Brett and Tim are part of an exclusive animal rescue team working in New Orleans.  Their "special ops" team is comprised of the most experienced animal welfare personnel.  They report that on Friday they rescued 31 animals: 10 dogs, 6 birds (cockatiels and parakeets) and 25 cats.

The animals rescued from New Orleans are
being taken to the Lamar Dixon Expo Center (a non-profit facility specializing in equestrian and 4-H activities) located near Gonzales, Louisiana. The expo center is filling much quicker than expected. In the four days they've been working in New Orleans, more than 2000 animals have been rescued by 20 teams. Tim and Brett report that most of the animals are in fair condition, some are injured, and some have skin problems. Many pet owners who evacuated left as much food and water as possible in higher floors of homes. However, those food supplies are now running out, so it's critical that the rescue teams get to pets as soon as possible.

There are dead animals everywhere they go, usually under piles of debris. Tim says the entire city smells like death. To ease the overcrowding at the Gonzales intake center, the next day or so they plan to locate animals, leave food and fresh water, and return later to rescue them.