Date: September 4, 2005
Time: 2:35 pm EST
Re: Hurricane Katrina Rescue Efforts
From: Diane

Yesterday was a long and difficult day for all. We drove over 4 hours each way to Mississippi to rescue animals. Along the way we had to stop and search for gas to make insure that once we had animals onboard we would be able to make it back safely. At one station we met two families that had lost their homes. The first family was a single dad with 5 kids that found a small dog abandoned after the storm. The kids begged their dad to keep it and now they are the proud owners of "Katrina" as the girls named her.

The other family had evacuated without giving it much thought. They thought it would just be a lot of wind like they have experienced in past storms and therefore left their three dogs behind. When they went back and saw that their house was completely gone, they thought that the dogs were surely gone too. Thankfully, they found all three dogs. Can you imagine! Dr. Ognibene checked all of the animals and we gave them food, water and bowls since they had none.

If these 4 dogs can survive this storm they can survive anything.

The only place for us to find gas was to go to an "emergency vehicles only" stop where police and rescuers are allowed. They were extremely nice and let us fill up for the return trip.

When we finally arrived at the fairgrounds where the dogs were being triaged and cleaned, we learned that they had been rescued from a Gulfport shelter in Mississippi. The animals had been in their cages for 7 days with no food or water - waiting to be rescued.

These 131 animals were the fortunate ones. Sadly, half the shelter had been lost. The animals were in great shape considering what they had been through. We rescued as many as we could fit in the unit, 30 dogs and young pups. We even had to borrow some carriers and crates to fit them all in since the dogs were pretty large and take up the runs. Once they were all on board, we took off to bring them back to safety. We arrived at the shelter in Birmingham at 1:00 am, unloaded and cleaned up the unit so we could head out Sunday to do another rescue.

Right now we are in the unit heading to Jackson, MS to load up another 30 or so animals. We are very tired but so very proud to be able to help. Anyone that has ever owned an animal knows that you can not say no to those eyes staring back at you.

Dr. Ognibene is currently at the Greater Birmingham Humane Society examining the first set of animals we will be rescuing from the shelter. These animals will be transported back to the League to make room for even more animals being rescued from all the areas in need further south.

We have plans to transport even more animals from the shelter with the unit leaving on Tuesday.

Will keep you all posted on how today goes.

Diane