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Animals Included in Gustav Evacuation PlansPets & Other Animals Evacuated from Gulf Coast for Hurricane Gustav
Pets were left behind during Hurricane Katrina. Other pet owners refused to evacuate so they could care for their pets. But for Hurricane Gustav, animals were evacuated.
Hurricane Gustav plowed into the Gulf Coast on Labor Day 2008. But this time around, plans were in place to evacuate animals and pets - a far cry from Hurricane Katrina, when thousands of animals and pets were abandoned. Hurricane Katrina: A Hard Learned LessonHurricane Katrina moved ashore in August 2005, devastating the Gulf Coast metropolises of New Orleans, Louisiana and Gulfport, Mississippi. In the aftermath of the category three hurricane, thousands of Gulf Coast residents found themselves amid toxic floodwaters. But it wasn’t just the humans who were victimized by Hurricane Katrina. Thousands of pets and farm animals were left behind to face the flood. No pet evacuation plans were in place, nor were there any official plans to evacuate livestock and zoo animals. In the wake of Katrina, rescuers from across the nation poured into the south to rescue the hundreds of injured, scared, hungry and abandoned animals. And the animal rescue operation didn’t stop there - animal lovers spent thousands of man hours and tens of thousands of dollars to care for the abandoned animals. Volunteers worked to reunite animals with their families, but thousands had to be placed in new homes across the nation. In the weeks, months and years following the devastation of Hurricane Katrina, state and federal officials came to a difficult realization: many of the human casualties of Hurricane Katrina refused to evacuate because their pets were not welcome in the evacuation shelters. And thousands of animals were not evacuated, left behind by residents who fled the red zone. Hurricane Gustav: A Chance for RedemptionAs it became clear that the Gulf Coast was in Hurricane Gustav’s crosshairs, a new scenario played out and this time around, things would be different for the pets and for their owners: 95 percent of New Orleans residents – 1.9 million - evacuated with their pets. In the latter part of August 2008, state-run evacuations got underway in Louisiana, Mississippi, and other Gulf Coast regions and this time, both humans and their pets were relocated to safety. Evacuees loaded their cats, dogs, birds and other pets into pet carriers and as the humans boarded their bus to safety. Officials even got a bit creative, using prison buses to evacuate animals once Louisiana’s inmates were moved to a safe location. Thousands of animals were evacuated from the danger zone, brought to pet shelters to weather the storm. “I’m glad they’re accepting pets for evacuation. I wasn’t going to leave my dog behind, so I was going to stay if he couldn’t be evacuated. My dog is a member of our family. We weren’t going to leave him behind,” one New Orleans evacuee told a CBS news crew. And it wasn’t just cats, dogs and other small pets that were removed from the red zone; livestock, zoo animals, and animals living in sanctuaries and other such facilities were also evacuated from the danger zone. Most evacuation shelters maintained their “no pets” policies, but many hotels took a different approach. According to reports on CBS, dozens of hotels and motels in the south waived their “no pets” policies, offering human and animal evacuees a safe haven. “Our hope is that by offering an evacuation option for pets, more people will decide to evacuate,” one state official told the press as he directed operations at one of the pet drop-off sites. And the evacuation efforts were a success for the animals and humans alike – 95 percent evacuated the red zone, saving and unrealized number of human and non-human lives.
The copyright of the article Animals Included in Gustav Evacuation Plans in Tornadoes & Hurricanes is owned by Mia Carter. Permission to republish Animals Included in Gustav Evacuation Plans in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.
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