Hurricane Katrina Rescue Diary
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September
13, 2005 |
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Tuesday,
September 13, 2005
From
Debbie Hill, director of
Rescues & Investigations
Today marks the end of the second week that we’ve been
here and, as you probably have been seeing in the photos, we look
a bit bedraggled. The sun, wind and heat are taking
their toll. People are working hard in the hot sun. We
had a heat exhaustion episode yesterday. Carmen, Robb and
I had to sit down, douse some water on our heads, take a breather
and let the nausea and lightheadedness pass. And we’re
watching for those things, too. We’re looking out for
one another.
The days are long. The team members who are in charge of
receiving animals at our trailer and transferring them up to Hattiesburg
and back – they’re up at 5 a.m. every morning cleaning
the trailer so they’re ready to roll. They spend all
day receiving pets, load the trailer, then make the trip up to
Hattiesburg, unload - and don’t get back to camp until 1:30
in the morning. Then they’re up again the next morning
at 5 to do it all over again.
The field people are working 15-hour days. We’re
up every morning refreshed, eager to get back to the job and DETERMINED. People
are keeping up their their stamina and strength. My
new motto is “Hey, we’re burning daylight, let’s
Go-Go-GO!” The faster we can get back out on the street
is important to us. We stay out as long as daylight holds
out. We don’t ever want to come back to camp empty-handed. We’re
staying until the light is fading, getting animals on our last
sweep through, and then we book it back to camp. We’re
always the last vehicles coming back to camp at night, rolling
in after dark.
Despite staying at a campsite with power, we can’t use
the water in the RV because we’ve got no place to dump the
gray water, so we’ve rigged up a shower at the animal shelter. On
every second or third day, we shower with the water sprayer used
to clean the kennels. We go back there after dark, stand
in the outside dog runs and take our showers with the cold water
hose. You know conditions are pretty rough when we think
it’s a luxury to take a shower with a sprayer in a dog run.
I just wanted you all back home to know how great these folks
are doing, even though I’m working them pretty hard. Everybody’s
sticking with it because this matters to us.
All
copyrights in photographs and diaries are claimed and reserved
by the Humane Society of Missouri. |
