Hurricane Katrina Rescue Diary
| |
 |
September
21, 2005 |
|
Wednesday,
September 21, 2005
From Kathy Warnick
President, Humane Society of Missouri
The Humane Society of Missouri has been selected by HSUS to receive
approximately 200 dogs and cats arriving from hurricane-affected
areas of the gulf. These pets have been rescued by our Disaster
Rescue Team and other animal welfare professionals working tirelessly
over the last three weeks along the southern Mississippi coast,
including the regions surrounding Biloxi, Gautier, Gulfport, Bay
St. Louis and Waveland.
For the past several weeks, the pets have been housed in a temporary
emergency animal shelter in Hattiesburg, Mississippi. They
are arriving Thursday by charter cargo plane from Bobby L. Chain
Airport in Hattiesburg. At the Spirit of St. Louis Airport,
the pets will be loaded onto vehicles with drivers generously donated
by Enterprise Leasing,
into horse trailers donated by the St.
Louis Metropolitan Police Department, and into Humane Society
of Missouri vehicles. All vehicles are either climate-controlled
or ventilated.
The pets will be taken to a triage center already set up at our
headquarters in St. Louis. There they will be examined by
veterinarians, vaccinated, photographed and, of course, provided
with food, water and a comfortable, climate-controlled place to
sleep.
Many have these pets have been surrendered by owners who are
no longer able to care for them; others are considered abandoned. All
will be held in foster care by the Humane Society of Missouri for
at least 30 days to allow time for their owners to locate them. To
expedite reunions between people and pets, photos of these pets
will be posted on hsmo.org and petfinder.com. After 30 days,
if an owner has not claimed the pet, the pet might be placed for
adoption.
On Friday and Saturday, foster families who have already registered
with the Hurricane Katrina Abandoned Pet Foster Program will arrive
to take these pets into their homes and provide foster care. Due
to the overwhelming and heartwarming response from St. Louis area
pet lovers, we are currently not accepting registrations for foster
pet caregivers. Please consider other ways
to assist pets and pet owners at this time.
Due to the sudden influx of these 200 pets, the Macklind Avenue
Adoption Center will be closed Thursday and Friday with reduced
hours of 12:30 – 4 p.m. on Saturday. The Westport
Area Branch Adoption Center will be closed on Thursday so that
staff members from that location may assist the new arrivals at
the St. Louis location, but will reopen with regular hours Friday
and Saturday. Both Veterinary Medical Centers of the
Humane Society of Missouri will be open for business with regular
hours Thursday, Friday and Saturday.
Thank you for helping the pets displaced by Hurricane Katrina.
Mississippi Team
From Debbie Hill,
director of Rescues & Investigations
Sorry I don’t have photos to send. The computer froze up
on me. I'll try to send some later.
We drove to Hattiesburg and spent the day assembling carriers
and crates and doing other things to prep for the pets’ big
trip to St. Louis. We’re going to start loading our
rescue vehicle very early tomorrow morning with the AC running
until it’s full, and then we’ll drive to the airport
to load those pets onto the plane. We figure it’s going to
take two or three trips until the plane is full.
This part of our mission is important to us as members of the
Rescues and Investigations staff. Usually, when we do a rescue
in Missouri, we’ve investigated a case, worked with the pets’ owners
to improve a bad situation and, as a last resort, remove the animals
and take them to the safety of the Humane Society of Missouri where
they have a chance at a better life. This Katrina mission
has been a whole different experience. We find animals, we
rescue animals from precarious situations, we’ve been given
animals from owners or good Samaritans, but then we transport them
up to Hattiesburg and the whole thing starts over. There
hasn’t been any closure for us – it’s just been
this constant conveyer belt of animals moving up to Hattiesburg
over and over. We need tomorrow. We’re looking
forward to knowing that they’re going someplace safe and
secure and happy. And even if we don’t get to send
the pets we’ve rescued, like the pets I pulled out of a rubble
pile or the Weimaraner and Basset mix we climbed across a tree
trunk to get, it’s okay with us, because the pets we’re
sending all have stories, too; we just might not know their stories.
After the plane is off the ground tomorrow, we’re heading
to Louisiana. There’s work for us at the Lamar-Dixon
facility in Gonzales.
We’re all getting calls from our families who are worried
about us with Hurricane Rita coming in. I promised them we
would stay safe. I’m keeping in touch in Tim and Brett
in New Orleans. They need to be out of the city tonight by
the 6 p.m. curfew, and then they will camp as usual at the Gonzales
facility for the night, maybe longer, depending on what Rita does.
All
copyrights in photographs and diaries are claimed and reserved
by the Humane Society of Missouri. |
