FLIRTING WITH DISASTER
Our Trip to Aid Animal Victims of Katrina
By Stacy E. Smith

They said a hurricane was coming. This one was christened Katrina, as all hurricanes must have a name. Katrina was coming and the weathermen predicted that she was going to hit the U.S. hard -- as hard as any has ever hit here before. The Gulf Coast was where Katrina had taken aim and she showed no signs of backing off. So the country waited and watched.

Some of the residents living in the areas that would be hit decided it would be best to leave. They packed up some of their belongings and their pets and went to see relatives in other states or stayed in hotels in places they knew would be out of Katrina’s reach – just in case. Other residents opted to stay. After all, there had been plenty of hurricanes that had made landfall in that area and although the authorities had always said they should evacuate, they never did and everything had been fine. Still others felt “stuck.” They felt that way for any number of reasons. Some had family members in the house who were too ill to travel, some had no family members out of state and no money to pay for a hotel. Some had pets and nowhere to take them; unwilling to leave them behind, they would all just stay put and pray for the best.

The rest of the country waited as well. Some of us prayed for strangers and some of us prayed for friends and relatives. To be honest, I'll bet most of us never believed that Katrina would be all that bad. As most people do, we tend to forget how devastating Mother Nature can be. It had been a long time since Hurricanes Camille and Andrew. We had all moved on and there were no longer any signs of those earlier catastrophes.

The Disaster

Katrina finally arrived. She had slowed from a category five to a category four; the difference of only a few miles per hour – she was still a powerful force to be reckoned with. Houses and businesses were demolished by the winds and others were covered in water to the rooftops. People and animals died. For those left alive the clock was ticking. They had to reach a safe place soon, as there was no food, water or medicine and some had only a rooftop between them and the deep, diseased water waiting below to claim them. Those in flooded areas signaled for help and were rescued by officials in boats and helicopters. They were told they could not take their pets and, although the decision was heart-wrenching, most left pets behind and again prayed for the best. Maybe it wouldn’t be that long before someone would go back for their animals. Some would not leave their pets. They would wait and pray for the best. In areas that weren’t flooded out there were pets and livestock left behind as well. Some animals had escaped to the streets during the storm and some remained in the houses. For all of them the clock was ticking. Like the people, the animals needed food, water and medical attention. Like the people, some would not last long enough for help to reach them.

The Response

Everyone rallied to help – finally. The Red Cross, the churches, FEMA, the military, Oprah, Dr. Phil, Geraldo – everyone. But those responders were mainly concerned with the people, and rightly so. The people were desperate and dying. But the animals, what about them? They were in trouble too and their human families were desperate to save them, desperate to keep them. In some cases, they were as desperate to keep their animals safe as they were to save themselves. Some people even died in that pursuit, unwilling to leave their beloved pet when rescuers came to take them from their roof or to the rancid and dangerous Superdome.

Enter the ASPCA and HSUS; the equivalent to the Red Cross for the four-legged victims of this disaster. They rose to the occasion and started the grueling work of locating the furry victims and bringing them to safety. But they needed help and luckily there were lots of “civilians” out there ready to answer the call. And they did – in droves. There were donations from pet food companies, kennel manufacturers and of course, from small groups and individuals. It was on that level that Kansas City entered the picture. It is on that level that we entered the picture.

The Call

Not the cosmic, philosophical call, but an actual telephone call: Andrea Galyean, owner of Puppy’s Playpen, called us to say that she had deployment orders from the ASPCA for a team that she was putting together to go down to New Orleans to help. The team initially consisted of a small group from Puppy’s Playpen, then quickly grew to include Paw Prints, Brookside Barkery & Bath and Sunflower Humane Society/Pet Sense Veterinary Hospital. Dr. Randy McCallum, a Veterinarian and owner of an animal shelter would be with us. We later connected with Erica Lane (owner of Pawz at Play) and a team from Summit Pet Care as well.

The original idea, when it began at Puppy’s Playpen, was to take supplies down there and to bring some animals back to Kansas City in order to help make room for others that would surely come to take their place. When Andrea called originally she wanted us to help her compile a list, of businesses and individuals to call to help garner support for their trip in various ways, and of the animals after their return. When we hung up we thought we’d call Johnny Dare (of 98.9 The Rock) and let him know what was happening; perhaps if he had time he could mention it on the air. There was a great need for supplies and money and we knew he and his listeners would rise to the occasion. He graciously had me on the air the next morning and his listeners stepped up to the plate in droves! The response was astounding. Not only did his listeners rise to the occasion, but they told their friends, colleagues and bosses. The phone calls and donations poured in like the water from Lake Pontchartrain. It was amazing! Puppy’s Playpen was full from floor to ceiling with pet food, kitty litter, bowls, leashes, towels, medical supplies and toys. Andrea’s customers could barely walk through the door! We loaded several SUV’s and a U-Haul that night and prepared to leave early the next day.

The Next Day

Well, no good plan goes as expected and this one was no different. The previous evening we began hearing rumors that no one would be allowed into the New Orleans area for animal rescue. Some checking was done and, as expected, we were unable to reach anyone in charge for confirmation of our orders. A lot of messages were left and we hoped for more information in the morning.

The team met at the designated spot in the morning and got our proverbial ducks in a row as we tried again to get some solid information. Then the call came. New Orleans had more than their share of volunteers, but Mississippi was sorely in need and we received new deployment orders to head to Hattiesburg, Mississippi. And so we left, all twelve of us, with our vehicles packed floor to ceiling with supplies. Five SUV’s (two of them rented, two borrowed), a pop-up trailer and a dog trailer (both also borrowed) and a U-Haul box truck. We drove and drove. We stopped for gas and restroom breaks, remaining fairly well coordinated – thank goodness for cell phones! We drove until we couldn’t drive any more and stopped to sleep in Vicksburg, Mississippi, where hotel rooms were scarce since most were filled with Katrina refugees. There wasn’t one single hotel in town with enough rooms for all of us, but after about ten phone calls we were able to find enough rooms in various hotels to accommodate all of us. So we slept for four hours (that is, if any of us went to sleep right away, and I doubt any of us did) and were on the road again bright and early the next day. We would arrive in Hattiesburg in just a few more hours.

Hattiesburg, MS

It was mid-morning and it was already HOT! We were there and ready to go nonetheless and after checking in, signing the required releases and acquiring our official name badges from the HSUS volunteers, we unloaded our vehicles and I began taking photos. It seemed unexpectedly quiet. Not a lot going on. No hubbub or commotion. But it was still early in the day.

We were actually told at one point that they didn’t think they needed us to stay and help. They thanked us for our donations and said that we could probably help clean cages and stalls, but other than that we might as well turn around and go home. WHAT? We had official orders and drove fifteen hours to get there. We even had a vet with us who was ready and willing to go to work. Surely they wouldn't turn him away, would they? That couldn’t be the end of it.

It wasn’t. A few conversations later we were all put to work. We were organizing, cleaning, moving animals and taking in a lot of information. We were working in a stable located on the property of a sort of recreation/community center. There were several buildings, one of which housed hundreds of human hurricane victims. Those who came in with their pets were allowed to “board” them in this makeshift intake center, so not all of the animals we saw when we showed up were completely alone. The rest of the animals, however, were without their families. Some were pregnant, some had litters of puppies or kittens that they were nursing, some were injured from the storm, some had been neglected prior to Katrina and some were as healthy as our own pets waiting for us at home. There were puppies and dogs, cats and kittens, horses and goats, rats and chickens. All of them were alone, confused and frightened. They all needed care that ranged from a good meal and regular walks to stitches and splints. Some were in severe distress and some were in such bad shape that euthanasia may ultimately prove to be the most merciful option. The medical team simply had to do their best in their primitive veterinary hospital. So, we worked. All of us. I am amazed, as a member of the press, at how reporters and photographers are able to walk into a disaster and simply report. It was not the case for us. We worked and worked. We hadn’t even set up our campsite yet. That would come later. Finally, I took a break and grabbed the camera. It was important to get pictures, to document what we were seeing.

As the day wore on and we realized that setting up camp in the dark was a bad idea, we all broke away from the tasks we were performing to set up our little tent city. As evening fell, when most people’s work is winding down, the work in Hattiesburg was just gearing up. The relative calm we witnessed when we arrived was simply the calm before the storm. It was at night that the action would really begin. You see, all day, while we were cleaning out stalls and cages and disinfecting every inanimate object in sight, and the vets would conduct thorough exams, treating the sick and injured animals in their care, there were animal control vehicles and trucks from humane societies around the country out there in the storm-torn areas picking up strays from the street and rescuing them from homes. They collected these lost souls and would then transport them later, at night. That’s when the real work began; when the animals arrived.

They arrived alright, with much fanfare. A hundred or more at a time. There was chaos, but an organized sort of chaos. The players took their places and waited for the animals to be unloaded. One by one they were handed over to a member of the Veterinary Medical Assistance Team (VMAT) for decontamination – a good sterile scrubbing. Following that minor trauma the animal would be processed. A volunteer would check for a microchip (there were few successes where that was concerned), complete the appropriate paperwork, put a paper identification collar with a number around the animal’s neck and then moved the animal on to their next stop.

The next stop was triage. That consisted of taking the animal into one of the horse stalls that contained a Veterinarian and a Vet Tech and perhaps another volunteer. They would do a brief exam to determine any immediate medical needs and treat anything emergent. They would also give them all of the traditional vaccines and a loading dose of antibiotics just in case. A much more thorough exam would come the following day when there was more time, but this was like a M*A*S*H unit, the emergencies would get care immediately, the rest could wait. This would last until the wee hours of the morning. Then it was time for a very few hours of sleep before more medical treatment, cage cleaning, walks and whatever else needed to be done.

Lost & Found

There were stories of heartwarming reunions and heartbreaking loss. People would come in looking for their pets and as luck would have it – a reunion. The flip side bore sorrow and uncertainty. Erica Lane, owner of the soon to be opened Pawz at Play, recounted two stories to me:

“One day I was spending time with a beautiful female blue marble Great Dane (Mark & I split walking the dogs and cleaning the cages, this particular dog I walked and he cleaned the cage). Other volunteers had written on her log that she didn’t walk on a leash so I spent some time with her. She was just very scared and after about 15 minutes she was OK, but just very clingy to me (imagine that image - her head came up almost to my shoulders)!! As we were finishing up cleaning her cage, feeding her and giving her fresh water another volunteer came up to tell us that they had located her owner and he was coming to get her!! When the owner came to get her we wanted to see them reunited (it was beautiful)!!! Afterwards I was talking to her owner (he was in his 70’s), he told me her name (Dixie). And he said the only thing that would make this perfect is if he could find his other dog. I was asked to take him to every cage to see if his other dog was there. Now remember with 600 + animals and about 80 a day coming in and going out, the chances of us having his other dog were slim to none. He told me the other dog was an orange Australian Shepherd. So I walked him around to each cage to see if we could find him. At the 4th cage we went to I looked in and said this is an orange Australian Shepherd (I doubted this was his dog). He looked in the cage and then yelled – “Checkers”!!!! The dog started crying and jumping, and the man started crying (and of course I started crying too)!! When we got Checkers out to the front area we watched as the two dogs were reunited – it was wonderful!!! There was not a dry eye in the place. The gentlemen hugged me and said ‘God Bless you.’”

“Later, a man came in that had spent five days in a tree waiting to be rescued. He had rescued his dog, a wire haired rat terrier, and had brought a cooler up in the tree to put the dog in as he needed to nap. On the fourth morning he woke up and the cooler was there, but his dog was not. We did not have his dog.”

The Side Trip

At the end of the day, Paw Prints was there as press and Hattiesburg was only part of the story. So, on our second day of the trip, and as difficult as it would be to leave even if only for the day, we wanted to head south to see the destruction. You see, Hattiesburg suffered some damage, but none much worse than Kansas City faced during the ice storm several years ago. Downed trees, no electricity, businesses and grocery stores closed, etc. The most extreme damage was an hour and a half south in Gulfport and Waveland – not to mention Biloxi and other coastal cities.

We were closest to Gulfport so we set off in that direction. As we drove south the visible damage increased exponentially. Instead of just a few trees blown over, entire groves of trees were flattened. The steel framed signs and marquees outside businesses were twisted like the twist ties on a bread sack. Windows were blown out, boarded up or both. Parking lots looked like flea markets, filled with piles of clothes for people to come and take as needed. It was a ghost town. What were we looking for, exactly? A stray animal to take a photo of? A resident and their pet with no place to go? We weren’t sure exactly and we didn’t even know if we’d be allowed into the city limits. We were just going to play it by ear. So much so, that we wrote “PRESS” in black magic marker on the back of a sheet of paper that on the front contained directions to Mississippi. We taped it to the back window of our rig with surgical tape. We hardly looked official, that’s for sure. Unlike the big guns of the press, we did not have our publication’s logo plastered on the sides of our vehicle or even our T-shirts.

We reached the city driving right along side Humvees filled with National Guard soldiers and directly beneath the Huey helicopters taking off and landing all around us. Getting into the area might have been sheer luck rather than our being members of the press. The MP checking vehicles (turning most back to wherever they came from) happened to have been born in Research Medical Center right here in KC and let us right through as a sign of solidarity to his KC “cousins”. We thought we’d drive until we saw something that piqued our interest. It didn’t take long. In short order we saw the very luxurious truck belonging to the Humane Society of Missouri (St. Louis, MO, that is). We recognized it from a distance as we had seen in the night before dropping off animals in Hattiesburg. We stopped next to it and spoke to them briefly, unaware that the corner on which they were camped was in front of a local animal shelter, The Humane Society of South Mississippi. We had hit pay dirt and we didn’t even know the half of it yet.

The Humane Society of South Mississippi

The miracle was that their building was still standing, or at least most of it, which is more than most other businesses in the area could claim. Their outer buildings were demolished with only the concrete pad site and part of the steel frame remaining. That is where the veterinary tents were placed. There were two of them and they were being manned by a VMAT team. They were treating strays, animals surrendered by their owners and pets brought in by their owners that needed veterinary care. The local vet offices were all closed or demolished.

They were struggling with everything, but somehow making the best of it. It was possibly the only shelter still standing for 100 miles. The Waveland shelter in the next town over was demolished. The HSSM staff was tired and frustrated and needed help. Although they were getting some donations of supplies they were only getting a fraction of the number coming into Hattiesburg, probably because no one knew they were there. There were no big organizations coming to help them. No ASPCA and no HSUS. They were on their own. The only “help” they were getting other than from the VMAT team was other organizations coming in to take animals away. Not exactly what they wanted. They wanted to keep the animals there, to somehow keep residents from having to relinquish their pets. The HSSM wanted to be able to board or foster the pets of local residents until they could rebuild or find a new home for their family. If only their shelter were completely operational, that was key.

They were 2 ½ months from their new facility being completed and moving in. There was money pledged locally and things were on track. Then Katrina hit and the money originally pledged was no longer be available to them. The shelter staff was devastated. They had hoped to be a safe refuge for the animal victims of Katrina as well as a source of stability for those residents that would otherwise feel as if they had no choice but to surrender their animals in the hope of a better life in a new home far away from the one ravaged by Katrina. The last thing a displaced family in crisis should have to bear is surrendering their pet because they have no other choice. The HSSM wants to give area residents a choice. All though not all will opt to keep their pets, many would like the option.

Consider this story that came out of the New Orleans area. Some of you may be familiar with it since it made national news.

A young child that was being evacuated from the Superdome in New Orleans held his dog, Snowball, in his arms expecting his companion to come with him. Authorities pulled the dog from his arms telling him that no animals were allowed. The boy repeatedly shouted the dog’s name as he was taken away to board the bus. Inconsolable, the boy cried until he vomited.

Now, consider this story with a different ending. Imagine that the local shelter had representatives at the evacuation site ready to scoop up little Snowball at that moment. Imagine that the shelter was able to take the dog and promise that it would be well cared for until the boy’s family could either return or make arrangements elsewhere, at which point Snowball would be reunited with him. The effect would have been monumentally different for the entire family. They would have had one less worry hanging over them. One less thing to recover from.

The Road to Recovery – Adopting Gulfport

Upon our return to Hattiesburg later that day, the story of HSSM was relayed to Dr. Randy McCallum of the Sunflower Humane Society, the vet who had accompanied us down south. The wheels began turning and an idea was hatched. The idea was to help that shelter; to raise money to complete their building, collect donations, transport supplies and create a network of foster families here in KC to temporarily care for pets that owners do not want to surrender.

McCallum had every intention, as did the rest of us, to return to Hattiesburg as often as possible to continue our help with HSUS, but this would be an additional opportunity to help on the front lines. Sunflower Humane Society would adopt the Humane Society of South Mississippi, the Gulfport shelter. Not only will that shelter be adopted by Sunflower, but the effort will be wholeheartedly supported by the other businesses that teamed up on that trip: Paw Prints Magazine, Puppy’s Playpen and Brookside Barkery & Bath. Combined, we will all pool our resources and efforts to rebuild the shelter and give the storm-ravaged area a central location where local citizens can temporarily house their pets if they so choose. We want to take away that feeling of hopelessness that comes with feeling like you have no way to care for your pet and must give it up to a “better” family. There is no better family than the pet’s own and we will help make that an option to hundreds or even thousands of families in the Gulf.

Coming Home with Katrina Dogs

Although the original plan was to return with some of the animals affected by the storm, the idea was to take animals with all sorts of needs. Whether they needed temporary housing until their families could be located or they needed permanent placement we would be happy to bring them back to Kansas City with us. However, the HSUS team wasn’t exactly on board with that at the beginning. They initially told us that they would not be releasing any animals to anyone except their owners and if that’s all we wanted we could leave then and there. They were unsure of our intentions and not quite ready to trust us yet.

Our team had to earn their trust and with an actual shelter, Sunflower Humane Society, it turns out we had an advantage. But that was just part of it. We didn’t really know it for sure, but HSUS wanted to see real dedication and work in Hattiesburg before they would consider releasing any animals, even to a licensed shelter. They weren’t interested in the type of help that amounted to showing up, taking the goods and leaving. They needed help there and unless you were willing to do the work you weren’t going to return home the hero. The team passed the test with flying colors. Every one of our team worked long, hot, sweaty, exhausting hours. Most didn’t even take time to eat, or at least not much. Sleep came as a welcome reward even though it came in small increments.

As the time drew near that we would have to leave, if just temporarily, to return and run our respective businesses, the window of opportunity to bring animals back with us was closing. They were overwhelmed up at that makeshift animal hospital and there was word that 200 animals would be coming in just a few hours. If they didn’t release some animals to us soon we would be forced to leave with none. There were a number of them that had been surrendered by their owners and were in need of new homes. We just needed to get the attention of those in charge and get permission.

Dr. McCallum and Dale Smith (Publisher of Paw Prints) ran from our little tent city to find the director in charge there. They made their case and permission was granted. There was little time to break camp and load the animals. Seven dogs were chosen and loaded into the dog trailer we took along and the first group to leave was packed up and gone within 30 minutes. We were on our way. The second group stayed another day and was granted permission to take eleven more animals the following day. The first group of Katrina pet refugees was on its way to Kansas City.

Home Sweet Home

The ride is a little longer when you travel with animals. You have to stop whether you need gas or not, whether you need a pit stop or not. The dogs needed to be walked and watered and given some attention every three hours or so. Our legs were glad for the frequent breaks as well and there were surprisingly few “accidents” on the trip. They all arrived at night, both groups, with no fanfare whatsoever. The facility was closed and there was no staff present. It was late at night and quiet. It was definitely less stressful for the dogs. Either way, I’m sure they were glad to be on solid ground for the first time in about 15 hours. I know we were.