Here's the article from the Wall St. Journal. It doesn't mention the rescues I did 'cause she didn't get my info. in time, but it's still a wonderful article about all the other rescues going on out there:
Animal Groups Save
Scores of Lost Pets;
'Rescue Rig' Arrives
By AVERY JOHNSON and RACHEL EMMA SILVERMAN
Staff Reporters of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
September 6, 2005; Page A12
Rescuers are racing to save some of Hurricane Katrina's most vulnerable
victims: pets.
Animal-welfare groups have stormed the beleaguered Gulf Coast with
mobile veterinary units, holding pens for large farm animals and traps
to ensnare frightened pets. They've been running high-risk missions to
rescue stranded creatures, transport them to shelters on safer ground,
and reunite them with their owners, many of whom were forced to leave
behind their pets when fleeing the storm.
The efforts have drawn a motley crew of rescue teams from all over the
country. Some groups, with highly skilled veterinarians and seasoned
animal-rescue pros, are decked out with fancy vehicles and equipment,
while others are composed of little more than die-hard animal lovers
sleeping in the back seats of their cars.
The American Humane Association dispatched an 82-foot, blue "Animal
Rescue Rig" from Denver, which costs $6,000 a day to operate and comes
with an ambulance that can be driven into the back, three rescue boats,
showers, and enough fuel and water for a month. A group called Code 3
Associates from Longmont, Colo., has a 77-foot tractor trailer that
weighs 74,000 pounds and has a horse trailer and veterinary triage
center.
Another outfit, Noah's Wish, has been plucking dogs and cats from houses
and rooftops in Slidell, La., outside New Orleans, and is even
bottle-feeding a baby squirrel there. Meanwhile, Dr. Kent Glenn, an
Aledo, Texas, veterinarian, raised $1,250 from his clinic's clients on
Saturday morning and the next day headed out to Hattiesburg, Miss., in a
Dodge pickup hitched to a 20-foot cattle trailer, to help out.
The hurricane's fury left an estimated tens of thousands of animals --
including pets, livestock, zoo and aquarium creatures -- stranded in
muddy waters and dilapidated buildings. Many human refugees fleeing the
storm did not have space or money to take their animals with them. Those
survivors left in New Orleans often weren't allowed to take their
animals into the city's makeshift shelters at the Superdome and the
Convention Center -- or on some of the evacuation busses, boats and
airlifts out of the city -- forcing many pet-owners to leave their
creatures behind.
As a result, animal welfare charities and message boards are being
inundated with anguished calls and emails from Katrina refugees
searching for their pets. "My birds are dying in new Orleans I need
help," reads one appeal on a message board at Web site, Petfinder.com.
"Urgent plea for help, lost 4 dogs, everything," says another.
The American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, as of
yesterday, had logged nearly 600 calls from frantic owners. Patricia
Mercer, the president of the Houston SPCA, where many of the homeless
pets are being housed, says that her 10 disaster phone lines have been
constantly busy since the evacuation effort began, with calls from
worried pet owners and volunteers. (As of yesterday, she had reunited 27
owners with their pets.)
Two such desperate parents are Linda and Robert Kocher, who are trying
to get to their animals, as the time ticks down on the amount of food
they left for them. The couple departed their New Orleans home about two
weeks ago on a vacation to Iowa, and left their two dogs outside in the
yard with an automatic feeder, and their two cats inside with plenty of
water and food. They fear that the food may have run out over the
weekend.
"I could rebuild my house, but if given a choice between my house and my
pets, I would choose my pets. They're alive. They have personalities,"
says Mrs. Kocher, a 55-year-old who's lived in New Orleans her whole
life, and whose neighborhood was spared the flooding. She worries that
someone might have broken into her yard and taken the two big Catahoulas
-- Louisiana's native dogs -- to participate in the dog fights that can
be common around the South.
It's not easy reaching many of the stranded creatures. Most animal-aid
groups were only allowed into New Orleans proper over the weekend and
are having trouble getting to buildings that are surrounded by moats of
water. At the Superdome late Sunday night and into Monday morning, the
Louisiana SPCA found many animals already dead from heat or dehydration
-- they did manage to save between 30 and 50 dogs including a mother
with 11 puppies, and plan to drop traps for more. Some teams are also
facing shortages of fuel, air-conditioned vans, animal cages and vet
supplies. In addition, there's a chance that the rescuers could find
displaced and frightened alligators and poisonous snakes -- if the
reptiles don't find the homeless pets first.
Aid-workers have had to launch their maneuvers under some
stomach-turning conditions. Early Saturday morning, before dawn, a
coalition of rescue groups raided a Gulfport, Miss., animal shelter,
which had been flooded with nearly three feet of water and sewage,
because it had been located between the water and the town's waste
treatment plant.
When the team of rescuers arrived at the shelter in the middle of the
night, the stench of rotting carcasses and human and animal waste was
overwhelming, says Warren Craig, director of communications and
logistics with Code 3 Associates, one of a number of organizations that
participated in the rescue.
Still, a convoy including many animal-rescue groups managed to pull
about 130 animals from the wreckage alive. Several dozens more died in
the part of the shelter that had completely flooded. The survivors are
now being cleaned, given veterinary care, and shipped to shelters in
Birmingham, Ala.
Not all the animals have been so lucky. Late Friday night, a team from
the Louisiana SPCA took a 16-foot air-conditioned Ryder truck from
Gonzales, La., to a town outside New Orleans called Metairie, to save
some 50 dogs that had been boarded at a local animal hospital.
On the hour-long ride north, though, the air conditioning failed in the
van, and when the staff opened the back door they found the animals
dead. Only one dog, a bichon, survived, says Laura Maloney, executive
director of the Louisiana SPCA.
In New Orleans, Dr. James Riopelle, an anesthesiologi st at Lindy Boggs
Medical Center, spent part of the week holed up in the hospital, which
was surrounded by water, accompanied by a menagerie of some 41 dogs, 16
cats and two gerbils.
The animals were left in his care by hospital staffers who had evacuated
the city to tend to patients. Dr. Riopelle volunteered to stay behind
with the pets; his colleagues had left him bags of food, pet feed and
water.
On Sunday night an attempt to airlift Dr. Riopelle and the animals was
stymied when the rescue chopper sent to pick him up tipped over. (Only
two crew members were on board, and they were safe.) The pickup attempt
was being resumed Monday.
Lisa Lupin, a 37-year-old emergency-room nurse at the affiliated
Memorial Medical Center, escaped the hospital late last week with three
dogs but still fears there are some 35 pets left there, in cages with
food and water. She and other staff paid a garden truck $1,000 to take
them and their pets out of New Orleans when the busses refused to
transport large animals.
Animal-welfare groups are also grappling with the logistics of housing
and feeding hundreds of suddenly-homeless animals. The Houston SPCA
estimates that it will have received about 900 refugee animals by the
end of the day yesterday. About 400 of them had been smuggled by their
owners onto busses out of New Orleans -- only to find that pets weren't
allowed in the Astrodome.
In Austin, Texas, the Austin Humane Society had received nearly 75 furry
storm survivors by Sunday. Most of the animals' owners had been
airlifted to the city over the weekend and were being housed at the
Austin Convention Center, which wasn't permitting pets.
An animal control vehicle met pet owners at the convention center to
transport any animals to the humane society, where the pets could stay
temporarily and receive medical care.
Lynn and Jud Shelton arrived at the convention center on Saturday with
their two dogs, Li'l Bit and Belle; a black cat named Sammy who was
nestled in Mr. Shelton's backpack; and a cockatiel named Trixie, housed
in a cumbersome two-by-three foot metal cage that the couple had been
carrying around for nearly a week. When the Sheltons fled their house,
one of the first things they grabbed-- besides their animals--was a
large plastic bag full of pet food.
The Sheltons, who had lived in New Orleans all their lives, decided to
wait out the storm, seeking refuge in their attic. A fishing boat and
then a rescue plane finally got the couple and their four animals out of
the city, nearly a week later.
"There was no way we would leave them," says Mrs. Shelton, who is 60
years old. "Everything else was gone."
Write to Avery Johnson at avery.johnson@wsj.com and Rachel Emma
Silverman at rachel.silverm an@wsj.com
