PAWS Humane: Disaster Response
Most of us were glued to news reports of Hurricane Irma and gauging how it might impact our friends and family members. I’m sure everyone in Lee County, Alabama is grateful that the storm subsided considerably by the time it reached us.
Best Friends Animal Society, the Humane Society of the United States, and the Georgia Department of Agriculture have been on alert and preparing to deploy resources in anticipation of the severe damage expected, especially in Florida. We received reports from these storm-ravaged areas and it was pretty dire.
In a 24-hour period, an animal control shelter in Jacksonville Florida moved 400 animals out to destination shelters all over the Eastern U.S. They needed to make room for the large number of incoming strays expected in the wake of the storm. Without taking this measure their existing population would have had to be euthanized to make space.
PAWS Humane was asked to take in ten cats and seven dogs in the wee hours of Saturday morning, September 10th. They came to us fully vetted and adoption-ready. In fact, we did adopt most of them over that weekend. People have big hearts for animals in distress.
The weeks after the hurricane hit, we prepared to take in many more dogs and cats from the poorer counties surrounding Jacksonville. As of Monday, September 19th, PAWS Humane had taken in 16 dogs and 33 cats and kittens.
These animals will need a lot more from us as poor counties do not have the resources to provide even the most basic standards of care to their stray animal populations. Several states have suspended their usual rules regarding vaccination status in order to facilitate the transport process. We know it is risky, but PAWS Humane has the protocols in place to help mitigate this risk. Our mission is to save animal lives and we will do all that we can to help, just as we hope others would help us if we were in a similar situation.
On the Friday before the storm hit, we put out a request for donations of animal care supplies. The response from our community was overwhelming. We distributed many of these supplies to the Columbus Civic Center for use by families who evacuated with their dogs, cats, birds and rabbits.
The events of the past several days have been hard on our staff members. They don’t know from one day to the next how many animals they will be asked to care for and what their work schedules will look like. They have been troopers through it all, and some have gone out of their way to help the evacuees who have settled temporarily in Columbus.
It is a beautiful lesson in human nature to watch a community spontaneously rise up to help others in need.
Bobbi Yeo lives in Opelika, AL. She is the CEO of PAWS Humane in Columbus, GA, an animal shelter and veterinary clinic offering low-cost spay/neuter and other services to the public. Email her at byeo@pawshumane.org with your comments and story ideas.