Hurricanes.
I'm a Florida native, so I'm pretty familiar with them. OTHOH, I've also been lucky enough that in my 31 years living in FL, I've never been more than severely inconvenienced by a storm.
Yes, I've ached for the people in Katrina's path. I can't even imagine what it must be like to live through something like that... and it wasn't that long ago that hurricane Andrew (y'know, the *last* "most expensive natural disaster") struck not that far away from me. More personally, it was only last summer that me & mine were forced to live for days w/o electricity, several times over... and even then we counted ourselves lucky, because our house was mostly undamaged, we still had running water that we could drink, & we were all (including the animals) well enough to whinge about the weather.
So, yeah... I felt bad, in a very abstract sense, when Katrina hit. Then I started to think about the animals, & it started to really hit home. I've spent the last couple of days trolling various online news sources & animal welfare organization websites, gleaning information. I just watched a special "Hurricane Rescues" episode of the "Animal Planet Heroes" show that I'm completely addicted to.
I've cried. A lot.
Not that I think that animals are more important than humans... just for some reason I can identify with them more... and seeing people who've lost everything trying to find the pet they were forced to leave behind... I can't even deal.
So. Please. If you have any money to spare and haven't yet donated, *please* donate to the American Red Cross for human victims, and/or to any one of the various animal welfare orginazations who are currently in the trenches, a great many of which are listed on Petfinder's disaster site:
http://www.petfinder.com/disaster/
If you can't donate money or get to the gulf area in person to help clean cages, etc, then I've heard a great suggestion: volunteer to help out at your local SPCA/Humane Society or any other animal shelter/rescue (if you're in the US). It's likely that your local animal shelter is going to be sending people to help in the gulf region, so they'll be short-handed at home. Also, if you're thinking about all of those potentially-homeless critters left in the wake of Katrina & you're thinking you could foster or even adopt some, don't wait until Katrina pets are available! Go talk to your local shelter/rescue about fostering and/or adopting the pets they already have, thereby freeing up their resources to help other animals (I assure you that an already-established animal rescue is going to have an easier time of fostering Katrina victims than any well-meaning individual is... but if that animal rescue is already full, they're not going to be able to offer that help).
Most of all, though, PLEASE, everybody, make a disaster plan to include your pets! I'm not just talking about those of you who are here in a hurricane-prone area... wherever you live, there's a chance that you're going to have to evacuate at a moment's notice, & the aftermath of Katrina has demonstrated quite vividly that you *need* to take your pets with you, even if you think you're only going to be gone for a couple of days. There are a few links here which should give you an idea about what you should think about: http://homepage.mac.com/mattocks/morfz/rabcare.html#disaster (yes, it's a rabbit-specific site, but most of the links are geared t'ward general pets).
Bottom line, though? If you've got pets, you should accept the responsibility to protect them from natural disasters, which means evacuating them with the rest of your family...which is why I'm absolutely appalled that the US govt. was forcing people to choose between their own lives & that of their pets. I despise PETA, but they're right in this one instance... abandoning an animal is illegal... so why is the US govt. forcing people to do it?
Thing is, it's true that a great many disaster shelters won't accept animals, & I don't fault them for that (after all, it's difficult enough to adequately provide for a shit-ton of humans w/ very little notice... I can only imagine what a cluster-fuck it could become w/ animals). Still, there's *always* somewhere where you can go with your animals. First, see if you can crash w/ an animal-friendly relative or friend, or consider whether or not you can afford a hotel (where you can almost always smuggle an animal in...though many hotels waive their "no pets" policies during major disastors) or a boarding kennel/vet.
Of course, as has been demonstrated by katrina, sometimes the boarding kennels & vet offices get hit just as hard as the private residences. :( Even so, at least the animals that drowned there didn't spend a week or more starving or dying of dehydration or attacks from other starving animals.
If the hotel/boarding option isn't available to you, be aware that there *are* usually shelters that *will* accept animals. Find out where they are before there's an emergency. Think about making plans with a neighbor or close friend about banding together so one person can bring all of the animals to safety while everyone else takes care of the human needs.
If you absolutely must evacuate to a "no animals" shelter, bring your pets with you! Leaving them in the car (while you're checking on them whenever you can, to provide food/water/companionship & make sure they've got adequate airflow) is better than leaving them to fend for themselves at home! (Trust me... this is the *only* time I'm going to be advocating leaving an animal alone in a car ;P ).
As for evacuating your pets: ideally, you should have a carrier for every animal you live with, & a vehicle that can hold them all. If, however, you're like us & can't *quite* fulfil the ideal, consider this:
Hard-sided cat carriers & dog-kennels take up much less space when they're not assembled. Further, you can only really carry one hard-sided carrier/kennel in each hand at a time.
Further, if you're in a *very* emergency situation (like a fire), you're likely not going to have time to rush to the garage/closet/attic/basement/whatever & find the hard-sided carriers... yet who has the room to store such things in the main part of the house?
If you have small pets (cats, ferrets, rabbits, etc), this might be the solution (which I've only just heard about, & am planning on forcing the Squeezypet to invest in ;} ): EvacSaks (if that doesn't work, go to http://www.animal-care.com/ & search for "evacsak"). Easy to keep stashed next to various cages or wherever else small pets might spend time. Sure, they're not the most comfortable mode of travel, but if you've got to get everybody out of the house quickly, I can't see a better way of doing it. If you've got time to pack the car w/ better carriers, too, then great... if not, at least you've got everybody out, even though they be stuffed in bags & indignant. ;D
I've heard that pillow cases can be used to the same effect, in a pinch.
If you've got pets and all of this seems way too much trouble? Please, do everybody a favour, & find somebody else to take your critters... somebody who actually understands what pet ownership means.
It will be bad enough to see a tragedy like hurricane Katrina happen again... nobody wants to see a repeat of this level of animal suffering, too, when it can be avoided.
And you know what? Of my general "property", Fox is definitely the first thing I'd save in an emergency, & Dinah is a close second... but I'm afraid that they're both afterthoughts to my & even my roomates' many pets. :(
Yes, I've ached for the people in Katrina's path. I can't even imagine what it must be like to live through something like that... and it wasn't that long ago that hurricane Andrew (y'know, the *last* "most expensive natural disaster") struck not that far away from me. More personally, it was only last summer that me & mine were forced to live for days w/o electricity, several times over... and even then we counted ourselves lucky, because our house was mostly undamaged, we still had running water that we could drink, & we were all (including the animals) well enough to whinge about the weather.
So, yeah... I felt bad, in a very abstract sense, when Katrina hit. Then I started to think about the animals, & it started to really hit home. I've spent the last couple of days trolling various online news sources & animal welfare organization websites, gleaning information. I just watched a special "Hurricane Rescues" episode of the "Animal Planet Heroes" show that I'm completely addicted to.
I've cried. A lot.
Not that I think that animals are more important than humans... just for some reason I can identify with them more... and seeing people who've lost everything trying to find the pet they were forced to leave behind... I can't even deal.
So. Please. If you have any money to spare and haven't yet donated, *please* donate to the American Red Cross for human victims, and/or to any one of the various animal welfare orginazations who are currently in the trenches, a great many of which are listed on Petfinder's disaster site:
http://www.petfinder.com/disaster/
If you can't donate money or get to the gulf area in person to help clean cages, etc, then I've heard a great suggestion: volunteer to help out at your local SPCA/Humane Society or any other animal shelter/rescue (if you're in the US). It's likely that your local animal shelter is going to be sending people to help in the gulf region, so they'll be short-handed at home. Also, if you're thinking about all of those potentially-homeless critters left in the wake of Katrina & you're thinking you could foster or even adopt some, don't wait until Katrina pets are available! Go talk to your local shelter/rescue about fostering and/or adopting the pets they already have, thereby freeing up their resources to help other animals (I assure you that an already-established animal rescue is going to have an easier time of fostering Katrina victims than any well-meaning individual is... but if that animal rescue is already full, they're not going to be able to offer that help).
Most of all, though, PLEASE, everybody, make a disaster plan to include your pets! I'm not just talking about those of you who are here in a hurricane-prone area... wherever you live, there's a chance that you're going to have to evacuate at a moment's notice, & the aftermath of Katrina has demonstrated quite vividly that you *need* to take your pets with you, even if you think you're only going to be gone for a couple of days. There are a few links here which should give you an idea about what you should think about: http://homepage.mac.com/mattocks/morfz/rabcare.html#disaster (yes, it's a rabbit-specific site, but most of the links are geared t'ward general pets).
Bottom line, though? If you've got pets, you should accept the responsibility to protect them from natural disasters, which means evacuating them with the rest of your family...which is why I'm absolutely appalled that the US govt. was forcing people to choose between their own lives & that of their pets. I despise PETA, but they're right in this one instance... abandoning an animal is illegal... so why is the US govt. forcing people to do it?
Thing is, it's true that a great many disaster shelters won't accept animals, & I don't fault them for that (after all, it's difficult enough to adequately provide for a shit-ton of humans w/ very little notice... I can only imagine what a cluster-fuck it could become w/ animals). Still, there's *always* somewhere where you can go with your animals. First, see if you can crash w/ an animal-friendly relative or friend, or consider whether or not you can afford a hotel (where you can almost always smuggle an animal in...though many hotels waive their "no pets" policies during major disastors) or a boarding kennel/vet.
Of course, as has been demonstrated by katrina, sometimes the boarding kennels & vet offices get hit just as hard as the private residences. :( Even so, at least the animals that drowned there didn't spend a week or more starving or dying of dehydration or attacks from other starving animals.
If the hotel/boarding option isn't available to you, be aware that there *are* usually shelters that *will* accept animals. Find out where they are before there's an emergency. Think about making plans with a neighbor or close friend about banding together so one person can bring all of the animals to safety while everyone else takes care of the human needs.
If you absolutely must evacuate to a "no animals" shelter, bring your pets with you! Leaving them in the car (while you're checking on them whenever you can, to provide food/water/companionship & make sure they've got adequate airflow) is better than leaving them to fend for themselves at home! (Trust me... this is the *only* time I'm going to be advocating leaving an animal alone in a car ;P ).
As for evacuating your pets: ideally, you should have a carrier for every animal you live with, & a vehicle that can hold them all. If, however, you're like us & can't *quite* fulfil the ideal, consider this:
Hard-sided cat carriers & dog-kennels take up much less space when they're not assembled. Further, you can only really carry one hard-sided carrier/kennel in each hand at a time.
Further, if you're in a *very* emergency situation (like a fire), you're likely not going to have time to rush to the garage/closet/attic/basement/whatever & find the hard-sided carriers... yet who has the room to store such things in the main part of the house?
If you have small pets (cats, ferrets, rabbits, etc), this might be the solution (which I've only just heard about, & am planning on forcing the Squeezypet to invest in ;} ): EvacSaks (if that doesn't work, go to http://www.animal-care.com/ & search for "evacsak"). Easy to keep stashed next to various cages or wherever else small pets might spend time. Sure, they're not the most comfortable mode of travel, but if you've got to get everybody out of the house quickly, I can't see a better way of doing it. If you've got time to pack the car w/ better carriers, too, then great... if not, at least you've got everybody out, even though they be stuffed in bags & indignant. ;D
I've heard that pillow cases can be used to the same effect, in a pinch.
If you've got pets and all of this seems way too much trouble? Please, do everybody a favour, & find somebody else to take your critters... somebody who actually understands what pet ownership means.
It will be bad enough to see a tragedy like hurricane Katrina happen again... nobody wants to see a repeat of this level of animal suffering, too, when it can be avoided.
And you know what? Of my general "property", Fox is definitely the first thing I'd save in an emergency, & Dinah is a close second... but I'm afraid that they're both afterthoughts to my & even my roomates' many pets. :(