An update from North Shore Animal League America's President, J. John Stevenson
September 2, 2008
Dear Friends and Supporters,
Hurricane Gustav has come and gone, and fortunately did not cause as much damage as the hurricane experts thought was possible. However, rain and the threat of tornadoes linger in Gustav’s wake and the work of Animal League emergency rescue teams is just getting started. After Katrina, the Gulf Coast was better prepared for Gustav and accommodations were made for residents’ pets. Many were dropped off at shelters and many hotels waived their "no pets" policy.
So the work of the Animal League will focus on taking pets currently in shelters in the region to make room for pets that need to be reunited with their owners after they return to their homes. And of course, we will be prepared to accept any displaced animals.
I wanted to thank everybody that sent such kind words of encouragement and well wishes for our rescue teams.
The last few days have been extremely busy for our rescue teams and mobile units. After their arrival in Birmingham, AL over the weekend, they worked with our shelter partner, the Greater Birmingham Humane Society in the civic center. That is where many people evacuated with their pets to escape the hurricane. Our teams helped to provide care to the pets that were there.
Today, our teams drove to Mississippi with our shelter partner, the Humane Society of Greater Birmingham to respond to an urgent plea for help. The Mississippi Animal Rescue League served as a safe haven from the storm to four animal organizations. They are housing over 100 evacuated animals and asked the Animal League to take some of the animals since none of them could be returned to the parishes that evacuated them. The four organizations that evacuated their animals to Mississippi are the Plaquemines Animal Welfare Society, which is located below sea level in LA, along with animals from the Humane Society of South Mississippi, St. Tammany Parish Animal Shelter in LA and Slidell Animal Control in LA. Our rescue team worked long and hard, but were able to take 40 dogs back to the Greater Birmingham Humane Society in Alabama. There the dogs will be held until one of our rescue teams can transport them back to our shelter in Port Washington, New York tomorrow afternoon.
Tomorrow, our rescue teams will head to Tylertown, Louisiana aka Camp Katrina or in this case, Gustav. There we will work with our dear friend, Jeff Dorson with the Humane Society of LA. We will provide transport for 38 elderly dogs that have health concerns and 13 cats that were evacuated prior to the storm. We will relocate them back to the no-kill shelter in Algiers, LA and will continue to monitor any other animals in need of help. Please keep our teams and all the animals that they are trying to help in your thoughts and prayers. Until next time....
Joanne
516.883.7575