Pawprints of Katrina Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  Foreword

  Preface

  Chapter 1 - The Water

  Chapter 2 - Poodle on a Rooftop

  Chapter 3 - The American Can Company

  Chapter 4 - Base Camp

  Chapter 5 - On the Ground

  Chapter 6 - Message in a Bottle

  Chapter 7 - Knock, Knock, Knocking on Heaven’s Door

  Chapter 8 - It Takes Two to Make a Miracle

  Chapter 9 - The Faces of the Volunteers

  Chapter 10 - Red Gets His Wheels

  Chapter 11 - Fifteen Minutes of Fame

  Chapter 12 - The Twister Sisters

  Chapter 13 - Other Homeless Critters

  Chapter 14 - Animal Mug Shots

  Chapter 15 - Reunions

  Chapter 16 - A Dog Named Angel

  Chapter 17 - Putting Haley First

  Chapter 18 - Over the Rainbow Bridge

  Chapter 19 - Picking Up the Pieces

  Chapter 20 - Lessons Learned

  Appendix - Pet Disaster Preparedness

  Acknowledgements

  Index

  About the Author

  Copyright © 2008 by Cathy Scott. All rights reserved

  Howell Book House

  Published by Wiley Publishing, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey

  All photos, except page 17, by Clay Myers, © Best Friends Animal Society. Photo on page 17 © Rick Bowmer, AP.

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  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data:

  Scott, Cathy.

  Pawprints of Katrina : pets saved and lessons learned / Cathy Scott ; photography by Clay Myers.

  p. cm.

  eISBN : 978-0-470-44503-7

  To the people and pets of the Gulf Coast—

  those we helped and those we couldn’t.

  Because of them, animals will never again be

  forgotten in a disaster.

  And to my father, the late James M. Scott, a

  hillbilly kid at heart from the Ozarks of

  Missouri, who passed on his love of all living

  creatures to his five children.

  Foreword

  When the devastating tragedy of Hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans in August 2005, the whole world watched as countless heartbreaking, indelible images and stories were broadcast on our television and computer screens. Among them were the unforgettable faces of the thousands of animals left stranded by the terrible storm and the all-too-fragile levees.

  We did what we could to help, but there were people and organizations who performed real miracles. Among these was the Utah-based Best Friends Animal Society, whose rescue work is chronicled in this beautiful book by Cathy Scott. She was one of the volunteers who rushed to the scene to help rescue seven thousand terrified, abandoned animals and to follow through with medical and emotional support. Cathy stayed in New Orleans for nearly four months, leaving an important university teaching job in Las Vegas to continue working with and writing about the animals. This book is partly her story, but ultimately it is the animals’ story. It is also about one group of people who worked exhaustively to reconnect some six hundred pets with their original owners and to organize foster homes and permanent adoptions for more than six thousand others.

  As a lifelong animal lover and activist, I am moved to tears by these stories and by the photographs of Clay Myers. Pawprints of Katrina is an unforgettable account of the courage and boundless energy of people who realize that we human beings have an absolute obligation to help the other creatures of this planet. In seeing these images and reading the accounts in this book, we are reminded of the very best behavior of which the human heart is capable.

  I love this book.

  Ali MacGraw

  Preface

  In late August 2005, Hurricane Katrina slammed into the Gulf Coast region, flattening towns and cities and turning New Orleans into an uninhabitable, toxic swamp. In the days immediately following, tens of thousands of pets were left stranded without food or water, their owners expecting to return to them in two or three days.

  One week later, I volunteered to go to the region, and Best Friends Animal Society agreed, sending me down as an embedded reporter to write for its Web site and magazine. By early September, I was on the ground documenting the rescue effort.

  As word spread, with footage of marooned animals airing each day around the world, those wanting to help flocked to the Gulf, in the same way that I was drawn to the area. Afterward, when I returned home, I was haunted by the stories of the pets and the particulars of their lives. As both a journalist and an animal lover, one who shares a home with rescued and fostered dogs, those stories struck a personal note. I felt lucky to have gone down to the region with a professional rescue group to witness the first massive animal roundup. And I wanted to put on paper what I’d seen.

  Best Friends Animal Society was the first into the area—the first to arrive in boats to rescue animals from the floodwaters—and the last to leave. It was nearly nine months before the largest no-kill sanctuary in the United States, based on thirty-three thousand acres in Kanab, Utah, would pull out of the region, wait
ing until the last dogs and cats were either reunited with their people or placed in new homes. All told, Best Friends’ teams rescued roughly seven thousand pets. Between the various rescue groups, it is estimated that some fifteen thousand—possibly more—domestic animals were saved from the ruins.

  The pets rescued by Best Friends were taken to a center erected on the grounds of the St. Francis Animal Sanctuary in Tylertown, Mississippi, ninety miles north of New Orleans. During the storm, the sanctuary lost its electricity because of the winds. A day after the storm, Best Friends arrived in the region. In less than a week, they had assembled a crew that brought in generators, fixed fencing, and repaired runs. They set up their own animal relief center—called Camp Tylertown—on the St. Francis property and began going into New Orleans each day to pluck animals from the water, rubble, and ensuing muck. At the end of each day the animals were taken to Camp Tylertown, where they were treated and cared for.

  The rescue events that unfolded in the wreckage of Katrina were marked by the refugee pets’ tremendous will to live. Whatever the circumstances—in the water, on the streets, inside homes or locked schools—many animals ended up the winners, despite their needs being ignored because of an official order forbidding residents from evacuating with their companion pets.

  A percentage of animals not only survived, but, in large part because of the love and care afforded to them by their two-legged friends, also moved on to live happy, healthy lives. New federal legislation means they will never again have to be abandoned during a crisis. Moreover, rescue groups will be behind the scenes at the next disaster, reminding officials of their commitment to the animals.

  Although my enthusiasm for Best Friends Animal Society is evident throughout these pages, it does not discount the extraordinary efforts made by many other groups and individuals who did their part in making a difference in so many pets’ lives. And if I anthropomorphize the pet victims, that’s because it’s difficult to scientifically describe love.

  The pets left behind have become symbols of the courageous spirit of those who endured the events that unfolded on the Gulf Coast. Events themselves can’t be courageous; people or animals can be. These are their stories, from my frontline vantage point and from the lens of photographer Clay Myers.

  1

  The Water

  ON THE WATER’S EDGE, from a ramp leading from Interstate 10, I looked out on a vast span of still but deadly black water surrounding a New Orleans neighborhood. It was like a scene out of Waterworld, a postapocalyptic science fiction film. The off-ramp had been transformed into a boat launch. The silence was otherworldly.

  Driving to the area that morning meant passing by one of the city’s oldest cemeteries not far from the French Quarter, with its aboveground nineteenth-century marble, brick-and-mortar, and stone tombs topped with Christian symbols of angels and crosses. The scene was eerie as the flooded tombs appeared to float in the watery sludge.

  It was September 11, 2005. Parked on the ramp and sitting on the tailgate of his truck was Captain Scott Shields of the New York City Fire Department, famous for the courageous efforts of his search-and-rescue dog, Bear, at the World Trade Center. Captain Scott was with special boat teams deployed to the Gulf Coast region on behalf of the Bear Search and Rescue Foundation in memory of his dog, who, like many other working canines, passed away from health complications developed after searching Ground Zero following the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

  Before we set out on a boat to look for stranded pets, the captain looked around at the Best Friends Animal Society team. Then he asked us to take a moment to remember those lost on 9/11. There, standing amidst the rubble of Hurricane Katrina with the black water just a few feet from us, we bowed our heads, and not a sound was heard. No cars. No lawnmowers. No birds. No planes. No trains. No voices. Not even the couple of dogs rescued and then tied with leashes to the off-ramp railing, awaiting transport, uttered a sound. It was as if, at that brief but somber point in time, they, too, acknowledged the loss of life. It was a poignant moment, observing those lost in the largest terrorist attack on American soil while we were in the thick of rescuing animals in the wake of the biggest natural disaster in U.S. history. The Crescent City was devoid of life, except for those of us out rescuing that day and, of course, the animals left behind.

  Leaving in boats were Jeff Popowich, Ethan Gurney, and Mike Bzdewka, all with the Best Friends organization, and volunteers Ken Ray and Tracey Simmons. Volunteer veterinarian Debbie Rykoff stayed on the ramp to treat the pets brought in from the water.

  I stepped into a small, aluminum jon boat—stable and flat-bottomed—with Mike and Tracey, and we motored away from the freeway toward the nearby houses, maneuvering around felled trees, fallen street signs, water-logged cars, and whatever else was in the water. We boated out to a five-block area and stopped at Myrtle Street.

  It was my first run of the day and Mike and Tracey’s second. Mike cut the engine, and we sat in the boat with silence all around us. “Watch this,” Tracey said as she started barking. “Woof, woof, woof.” The street lit up with the sounds of animals. We heard a cat meow from three blocks away. On Myrtle, a dog barked, and then we heard another cat. At the intersection, Mike stepped out of the boat to pull us past large debris and tree trunks, and then he jumped back in and continued motoring.

  It was an older neighborhood of wooden row houses, and the water was just above the porches. We boated to the first house on the corner, where we’d heard a cat meow from inside. Mike stepped onto the porch, opened a window, and grabbed the cat. He put the cat in a pillowcase, because we didn’t have a carrier, and handed it to me as he got back in the boat. I set the cat next to me on the bench seat so he wouldn’t get wet from the polluted water on the floor of the boat.

  Midway down the street, a dog barked from a backyard. We moved toward the narrow driveway on the side of the house and saw a gray Poodle mix on a car roof next to piled-high debris that used to be a garage. Mike got out and waded to the house next door while I stayed in the boat with the cat. I held onto a porch railing with one hand and petted the cat through the pillowcase with the other. Tracey stepped out and, wearing rubber hip waders, began making her way down the driveway. Halfway, she abruptly stopped and let out a moan.

  “Are you okay?” I called out.

  “No,” she hollered back. “Something’s in the water.” She was quiet for a moment, and then she said, “I think it’s a body.”

  “If it was a body, it would be floating,” I told her.

  “It’s bubbling. It just moved,” she said, lifting her arms above her head.

  I knew she was spooking herself even more, so I tried to change her focus. “Look around you, Tracey,” I said. “See the tree branches sticking out of the water? It’s just a tree trunk.”

  “Are you sure?” she asked.

  “Positive,” I told her, not sure of anything at that point. “Just focus on the dog. Keep looking at the dog and step over the tree.”

  She slowly started moving again. It seemed like it took an eternity for her to reach the car. When she did, the dog jumped over the rubble behind him and into the murky water. Finally, she cornered him, plucked him from the muck, and carefully waded up the driveway and back to the boat. Tracey said she thought it might have been an alligator, because there were reports of sightings, but we doubted a gator could survive in that murky muck.

  The still-wet dog, who turned out to be a Cockapoo we later named Goofy, sat on my lap and didn’t move, even with the cat next to him. We got a second cat from next door, and then went to a few more houses on the street. Tracey followed Mike into one house, but she didn’t have a good feeling and turned around. When Mike emerged, he told us that five dogs had been tied in the yard, and it looked like they had all drowned when the water rose higher than their leashes could reach.

  In silence, we motored away from Myrtle to Elder Street, to where a cat was walking on a rooftop. We called to him, but he walked even higher to
the roof’s peak. The fence was down, and there was no way for us to climb up. He was out of reach, so we headed back to the boat ramp, hoping another team with more gear could get him.

  That scene played out every day on rescue duty. So did the sight of animals who hadn’t made it. On the front of one house in Lakeview, spray-painted in black were the words “4 dead dogs on log chains in back yard.” The teams learned to celebrate the successes and not dwell on the animals we could no longer help. It was the same with the people who had died and whose bodies were floating in the water. There wasn’t anything left for us to do for them.

  Because floodwater was steadily receding from neighborhoods throughout the city, rescue teams geared up for door-to-door searches on land where the waterline was dropping and for boat searches in areas where the water was still waist deep.

  I had arrived two days earlier, on September 9, 2005, when my plane landed in Jackson, Mississippi. By noon the next day, I was at Camp Tylertown, where Best Friends had set up an animal triage center. I immediately went to work on the fifty-acre grounds of the St. Francis Animal Sanctuary, a place that was alive with activity.

  Assignments often lead journalists in their careers. Stories of the military have taken me to Somalia, Saudi Arabia, and Panama. In the case of Katrina, instead of human strife, the plight of helpless animals took me to the hurricane-ravaged Gulf region. When the opportunity arose to travel to New Orleans, Biloxi, Waveland, and Gulfport to cover the largest animal rescue effort in history, I jumped at the chance. Within a day and a half, I was there, recording the events and stories of the displaced pets of Katrina. I stayed from September to November 2005, returned a month later, and then returned again in January 2006. I went back for one last trip in May 2006 to cover Best Friends’ pullout from the region.