Date: September 21, 2005
Time: 5:36 pm EST
Re: Hurricane Katrina Rescue Efforts
From: Dr. Eve Ognibene 

The past couple of days have been spent in Tylertown.

There we have examined the animals and prepared them for evacuation. Everyone is on edge about the impending hurricane, Rita, that last I heard was a category 5. All the rescued animals are housed outside in cages and would not do well in a severe storm let alone a second hurricane.

I am currently in Gonzalez at the large animal staging area located at Lamar Dixon. I just got the final details on our airlift. Tomorrow morning, we will be loading a 727 with 100 animals headed for New York. It has been a long time coming but because of Rita they are releasing the animals as soon as possible.

It is bittersweet. I feel as if we made a difference, that pets were reunited with owners, that animals were saved from the brink of starvation, that somehow we were able to do something that seemed impossible but yet my heart still aches for the thousands of animals that are still there with no shelter from another storm.

The rescue efforts have been temporarily suspended because of Hurricane Rita. I hope there will still be animals left to save when we are able to return and efforts resume. The Emergency Response Team that arrived this week has begun working with animals displaced by Hurricane Katrina in Texas.

Dr. O