Fewer Pets Left Behind by Gustav Evacuees
Cats & Dogs Go to Hurricane Shelters After Katrina’s Lesson
Aug 31, 2008
In August 2005, Hurricane Katrina roared through the Gulf Coast, pummeling Louisiana and Mississippi. And back then, it wasn’t just the human hurricane victims who were left to wade through the flood waters, fighting for survival; thousands of pets were left behind to fend for themselves during the storm, because their owners were not permitted to bring their animal family members to evacuation shelters.
Three years later, almost to the day, Hurricane Gustav twirled toward the Gulf Coast and once again, pet owners found themselves in the line of fire. But this case was different from Katrina: the cats, dogs and other pets were evacuated to shelters, brought to safety to ride out the storm.
Humans and Pets In Danger During Hurricane Katrina
Traditionally, evacuation shelters operated by the American Red Cross, government agencies and other similar entities have not provided any options for evacuees who were seeking shelter from the storm for their pets. It’s simply not practical to house hundreds, or even thousands of dogs, cats and other pets in the same small area with hundreds of humans due to quality of life and health concerns for both the pet and the human hurricane refugees.
In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, state and federal government officials made a startling realization: many of the people who remained in New Orleans, Louisiana, Gulfport, Mississippi, and other anticipated red zones on the gulf coast failed to evacuate because they did not want to abandon their pets. This ultimately placed an unrealized number of humans in harm’s way – precisely what authorities were trying to avoid by providing evacuation services in the first place.
To make matters worse, many pet owners did decide to leave their pets behind – thousands of them. And in the days and weeks following the wrath of Hurricane Katrina, volunteers from across the nation poured into the Gulf Coast, not to assist people, but to assist the animals who were wandering the streets, injured, hungry, abandoned and scared.
Evacuating for Hurricane Gustav
As Labor Day 2008 approached, so did Hurricane Gustav. But this time around, things would be different for the pets and for their owners: 95 percent of New Orleans residents – 1.9 million - evacuated with their pets.
In a hard-learned lesson from Katrina, evacuations began several days before Gustav’s anticipated landfall and pet owners got to bring their animals along as well.
“We are taking the necessary steps to ensure the safety of Louisiana’s pets,” explained Agriculture and Forestry Commissioner Mike Strain, D.V.M., one of the officials involved in the emergency preparedness planning for pets in the wake of Katrina.
“There’s no way I’d leave my animals behind. If they weren’t evacuating our pets, I wouldn’t be leaving,” one woman explained to a CBS television crew as she boarded a bus after delivering her crated dogs to a designated pet evacuation drop-off site.
Evacuees still couldn’t take their pets along with them to most hurricane evacuation shelters for Gustav. But a separate evacuation operation – just for pets - was overseen by federal and state officials. And it’s not just cats and dogs who were moved out of the line of fire from Hurricane Gustav – it was small animals, horses, and livestock.
As was reported by CBS, Gulf Coast residents were encouraged to transport their crated pets to designated drop-off locations, and one by one, the pet carriers were loaded onto vans and buses and evacuated to safety. State officials even used prison transport buses to move the pets, once the state’s inmates were moved to higher ground.
Related Reading
Preparing for an emergency like a hurricane can be overwhelming, but a complete list can help guide the process. Check out Hurricane Preparedness Tips for Pet Owners for more information, or learn more about the plans that were made for animal evacuation during Gustav.
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