Hurricane Katrina goes down as the third deadliest U.S. disaster, claiming 1,836 lives and doing $110 billion in damage. For pet lovers around the world, the heart-breaking stories of people being forced to leave their beloved pets behind mobilized the animal care community.
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(photo credit: GRIID.org)
But for every rescued pet, there were 8-9 who did not survive.
“The single most compelling fact for emergency managers to learn from Katrina was that approximately 44% of people who did not evacuate for Hurricane Katrina stayed, at least in part, because they did not want to leave their pets,” the Fritz Institute reported in 2006.
PETS Act of 2006
This brings us to the second set of heroes—those who helped pass the Pet Evacuation & Transport Standards (PETS) Act in 2006 so that never again will people be forced to decide between their animals and their safety.
Although the PETS Act was intended to protect humans, it had a surprising effect. In a study conducted post Hurricane Ike (Texas 2008) found that some evacuees left because they wanted to get their pets to safety.
There continues to be work to be done to help people understand they can take their pets with them if they need to evacuate. Great progress has been made in creating plans to evacuate people with their pets and identify facilities to handle the influx. And, work to help displaced animals continues.
The animal care community can take a bow for its world-leading efforts in championing the human-animal bond in disasters. The work HSUS and committed animal professionals have done has changed the fate of not just animals in the U.S. but around the world.
Shor-Line at HSUS
At Shor-Line we are proud to be part of the animal care community. Check out the Shor-Line Booth at HSUS. We also have donated one of our newest innovations, the Kat Play-Around™, for the HSUS raffle. It provides multi-cat housing that keeps groups together in a kennel that lets cats be cats.
It is just one of many products Shor-Line has developed to help the shelter community improve the lives of companion animals. See ya at the show!!