No Pet Left Behind - S. 2548 and HR 3835

[Coastie for Truth]

Humane Society of the US
Save Pets From the Next Disaster

Help prevent what happened after Katrina from ever happening again. The Pets Evacuation and Transportation Standards Act (PETS Act), S. 2548 and H.R. 3858, requires state and local authorities to consider the needs of individuals with pets and service animals in the event of a major disaster. You could help save thousands of people and pets from anguish -- even loss of life -- during the next major disaster, just by asking your U.S. Senators and Representative to support this legislation.

Take Action
Please call your two U.S. Senators and your U.S. Representative and urge them to co-sponsor the PETS Act (S. 2548 and H.R. 3858) if he or she has not already done so. You can reach your federal legislators by calling the U.S. Capitol switchboard at 202-224-3121, or click here to find your Senators' and Representative's office phone numbers.

After you make your phone calls, fill out the form on the right to automatically send an e-mail to your Senators and Representative urging them to support the PETS Act. Remember to personalize the e-mail message by expressing your opinion in your own words.

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For five days after Hurricane Katrina, 69-year-old Thomas Reed and his dachshund, Weezie, slept in an attic, living on cans of vienna sausages and bags of Chee Wees cheese snacks as floodwaters surged through their working-class suburb of New Orleans. "We had no electricity, no ice, no water—we just had to make do," says Reed, a retired civil engineer.

Reed's ordeal could have ended earlier, but the rescuers who paddled up to the house on the second day of the flood refused to take his 7-year-old dachshund—and Reed refused to leave without her.

"This little dog is my family," he says. "She's the sweetest, most trusting little thing. No way was I going to leave her behind."

Reed wasn't the only one who dug in his heels. Thousands of survivors clung to their pets and refused orders from emergency workers to leave them behind. The holdouts included a number of older men and women living alone who elected to stay with their animals despite the harrowing conditions, a choice that cost some their lives.

"Katrina spotlighted the importance of the pet issue in a way no other disaster has," says Michael Markarian, executive vice president of the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS).

In doing so, it radically changed the political landscape: For the first time, animal welfare groups believe America is ready to adopt a national pet evacuation policy. And they predict that, given the widespread support for such a policy, Congress this year will pass legislation requiring disaster plans for pets.

"This is an issue that cuts across party lines," Markarian says, "an issue that has really touched people." Indeed, Republicans like former House speaker Newt Gingrich and Democrats like Rep. Barney Frank of Massachusetts have embraced such proposals. Barely a month after Katrina struck, five members of Congress introduced a broad, bipartisan bill that would require states and communities to include pets in their disaster plans in order to receive FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency) funds.

Last month Sens. Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, and Frank Lautenberg, D-N.J., introduced a more detailed bill. It would require rescue plans for pets "prior to, during and following a major disaster" and offers federal financial assistance to states to help them set up emergency shelters for people and their pets.

Animal evacuation is just one part of disaster planning, says E. Ripley Forbes, director of government affairs for the American Humane Association. "But it is one part we can solve," he says. "States need a very modest amount of money to train pet disaster teams and identify buildings that could shelter pets."

Now several states are creating such plans, and the Humane Society's National Conference on Animals in Disasters, set for late May in Arlington, Va., is expected to draw a record number of emergency workers.

The death toll from the Katrina disaster now stands at more than 1,400 people, approximately 60 percent of them age 65 and older. State and local officials say they do not know how many of these people died because they stayed with their pets. Animal welfare groups rescued more than 10,000 pets, but tens of thousands of others were lost. While evacuees with the resources to drive to motels and hotels often found accommodations for their dogs and cats, older, poorer residents who relied on emergency transportation and public Red Cross shelters encountered a no-pets policy.

Katrina brought disturbing images of tearful owners forcefully separated from their pets. In one report, a distraught woman offered her wedding ring to a shelter aide if he would find out what had happened to her dog, which was not allowed inside.

The searing images of the Katrina evacuation "made people recognize that helping pets during a disaster is helping people during a disaster," says Markarian of the Humane Society.

More than 60 percent of American households have a pet. After Katrina, 61 percent of pet owners told national pollsters they would refuse to evacuate ahead of a disaster if they could not take their pets.

Yet, in most instances, decisions about rescuing people with their pets are left up to individual rescue teams, says Oliver Davidson, a disaster consultant with the HSUS. During Katrina, he says, "we went to every layer of government and begged them to make a public announcement—'You can bring your pets, we will take people with their pets.' No one would."

The Humane Society now finds itself being investigated by the Louisiana attorney general after complaints from residents who have not been reunited with their pets. "Government agencies wouldn't let people evacuate with their pets, set a cutoff date of last Oct. 15 for people to reclaim their animals and then complained that not enough people were able to claim their animals," Markarian says. "If proper plans had been in place from the start, reunions would not even be necessary."

In Maine, the legislature has a passed a measure mandating community disaster plans for pets, and similar bills are pending in other states, including California, Florida, Illinois, New Mexico, New York and Vermont. Emergency officials, in fact, are already taking animal evacuation seriously.

Just weeks after Katrina, as Rita barreled toward the Gulf Coast, state officials in Texas told residents to take their pets with them as inland communities quickly organized emergency animal shelters. "We had seen what happened during Katrina so we organized a pet shelter in a building next to our people shelter," says Deborah Leliaert, a member of the emergency management team at the University of North Texas in Denton, which took in people fleeing Rita.

The mayor of Galveston, Texas, announced that residents who were being evacuated on city buses could bring three pets with them, and the buses pulled out loaded with people, dogs, cats and birds. "It was a totally different, post-Katrina response," Markarian says.

Candice Avery, 54, who is divorced and disabled, boarded one of those Galveston buses with her cats, Harley and Davidson. "They're my babies," she told a reporter. And if the cats had not been allowed to go, "I would have stayed."

Thomas Reed—who lost everything in the disastrous flooding in New Orleans—was finally evacuated from the attic by a Coast Guard helicopter crew that agreed to take his dog Weezie onboard.

The two were flown to the New Orleans airport, and Reed eventually linked up with his son. "Weezie was by my side the whole time, just where I wanted her," he says. "She's been a real comfort to me."

Permission to copy granted. "I am an AARP Lobbyist in California"

This is no Bull. I am a Red Cross Disaster Assistance Team Captain and Shelter Manager, a Radio Amateur Civil Emergency HAM Radio Operator, and a veteran of the United States Coast Guard (with a tour in New Orleans; my wife was a teacher in New Orleans' Lower Ninth Ward) - Over half of the people who did not "timely evacuate" - and had to be expensively evacuated by Coast Guard helicopter - stayed behind because "Shelters Do Not Accept Pets" - so they elected to stay with their pets.

This is "for real." Pets are family - and they require disaster shelter.

"Coastie",
American Red Cross
Lieutenant, United States Coast Guard

[electropop]

1. I totally agree.

I wrote and called my congress-critters and the media many times on this topic last year. Is there an online petition or something we can add out voice to, for a unified effort?

[Coastie for Truth]

3. Here's the Humane Society Link - with a Petition

https://community.hsus.org/campaign/FED_2006_PETS2

[electropop]

10. Done and forwarded!

Thanks!

[kdmorris]

2. I'll call my Congress Critters.

There's no way I would leave without my dogs, cat, rabbit and guinea pig. Just thinking about how horrible their last few hours would be, or how hard it would be for them to be torn from us, makes me cry.

I don't live in an evacuation area, but it's still a good possibility that I would get out of here if a Katrina-like storm was coming. As part of my hurricane kit, I've a list of hotels/motels that will take pets in an emergency in three different directions (west to Naples, inland toward Orlando and North toward Jacksonville). But I have credit cards and other means of getting my animals to safety. Others do not. (Heck, some of them don't have the means to get themselves out of harms' way)

If I didn't leave and needed to be rescued, there's no way I would go without my pets. That would be like telling me that children are not allowed and I need to leave my children behind.

[BrklynLiberal]

4. This is something that we should all get behind! Too many pets were

lost during Katrina. My local disaster plans don't include accomodations for pets!!

[Coastie for Truth]

6. San Francisco "72 hours.org" Pet Preparations

Check out the San Francisco Office of Emergency Services page - and the web site generally.

We live between the "Famous" San Andreas fault and the "Less Famous" (but potentially deadlier) "Hayward-Calaveras" Fault and between the Guadeloupe River and Coyote Creek Liquefaction Zones at the Southern Tip of San Francisco Bay.

[BrklynLiberal]

8. Thank you very much!!!!

[Faygo Kid]

5. I saw this in AARP Bulletin, and I am contacting my senators and rep

Heartbreaking, I am so glad AARP has reminded us of this. I go nowhere without my pets. Period. Awful images in the midst of enough heartbreak.

[BrklynLiberal]

7. Thank you so much for posting this.

I posted a link in the Pets Group and the Animal Rights Group.

[Coastie for Truth]

9. Thanks.

I thank you -- and but of course Punchkie (Pidgin Polish-Ukranian-Yiddish for "Jelly Donut") thanks you.

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Meow. Prrrrrrr

[Robeson]

11. Done and forwarded....

...Thanks! :thumbsup:

[Patiod]

12. On a specific level

I make sure that our kitty's carrier is easily assessible in case of fire or other emergency.

[peacebuzzard]

13. Thank you for the link. I am glad there is widespread compassion

on this issue. I hope I never see another post management disaster like Katrina. Not ever.