VOLUNTEERS BUILD A SHELTER FOR HSLA

TYLERTOWN, MS—The Humane Society of Louisiana had only recently purchased the property of several acres with a small brick house on Obed Magee Road here, because it was expanding and had to leave the city of New Orleans when Hurricane Katrina hit.  When the floods that devastated the city subsided and people could get in to the stricken areas to rescue animals, they started pouring in to this new space that was not ready for anything, much less anything of this magnitude.

People from all over the country came to help save the animals.  They also helped this Humane Society of Louisiana facility recover from Hurricane Katrina.  In a little over a month hundreds of dogs and cats, fish and parakeets, a goose, chickens, turtles, hamsters, gerbils, and rabbits were brought here.  There is a story of these animals and what horrors they went through before they came to Camp Katrina.  But there is just as much a story of the phenomenal people who made a Camp Katrina for them to come to.  

Those people came from Virginia and Michigan and Pennsylvania, from Kentucky and New York and Hawaii, from Canada and California and Washington and Florida and Colorado and too many more states to list.  In the nine days I was at ‘Camp Katrina’, these volunteers who never met each other before created an animal facility out of a chaotic but functioning space that was reeling, as was all of the area, from being struck by two major hurricanes within two weeks of each other.

They flew, they drove; they stayed two days, two weeks, two months.  They got a name tag (very officially hand printed on colored duct tape) and said “what can I do?” and they looked around and saw something that was needed and they said “I can do that” and they did it.  Some came and went home and came back to do more, because they had to help as much as they could.

The first ones there put up dog runs and tents and were starting to take in animals when Rita threatened and they had to put thousands of pounds of food and cages and leashes and dishes into trailers and cram the animals into the tiny 5 room brick house and hope for the best - and they were spared.  And they started to put the shelter up again.

They each came with a skill that could be used.  They tended sick and injured animals and shoveled stone into the soggy areas where the new dogs are washed. They built dog runs, they covered them with tarps and dusted the ground to kill fire ants.  They sorted tons of donated animal food and medicine and leashes and cleaning supplies and blankets and people snacks and made order out of the jumbled piles of these so that things could be found when needed.   They created an operating room and office out of a room filled with supplies and chairs and a table and some animals, and they turned a bedroom into an ICU, and the kitchen and hallways into cat rooms (and the hamsters and gerbils – “Oh, you can’t use the microwave, the gerbil chewed through the cord”).  Someone went out and bought a small refrigerator for people food, because the one in the house was filled with animal medicines.

JR and Pat had come with their wives, Kathy and Lorraine.  Kathy was a veterinary technician and went directly to the ICU.  Lorraine had management experience and oversaw the whole camp operation while she was there.  JR and Pat could do home repairs and they patched the roof, rewired the house, built a wall across the carport entrance, built shelves, upgraded the plumbing, put up fencing for dog pens, patched pens, put up the perimeter fence, and found jumper cables when a car wouldn’t start – joking the whole time they worked. 

Rick had been an MP.  He was in charge of security.  Elizabeth had been rescuing dogs in Hawaii, and she was in charge of the dogs.  Veronica manages a shelter in Michigan and she took over when Lorraine had to leave.  Laurie and Kathleen and Mayree and Sherri and Libby and Lee and Leila and many more had volunteered at shelters or lived on farms and they fed and watered and walked and brushed and talked to the dogs.  Beth spent two days sitting and lying on the ground in the run with a dog that was so traumatized she would not eat, or come out of her house.  By noon of the second day the dog came out to eat, and sniffed Beth’s hand and received a pat without cowering and hiding – a victory!  Neva and Diane are moms – Neva took over the mountains of laundry – sheets and towels and blankets used in the animal’s cages - that were piled up, and they both (with a lot of help) sorted and organized the supplies. 

Everyone got up early to be feeding animals by 7 a.m., and worked until after midnight most nights.  Teams of rescuers went out day after day, walking ruined streets and listening for barking or meowing from animals left behind over a month ago when their owners evacuated ‘just for a couple of days’.  They looked for strays which have been running the streets, and they got excited when they were alerted to a new area where many dogs are still to be found.  They left the camp early in the morning and came back late at night with animals found in the destroyed houses and neighborhoods of the once proud and beautiful city of New Orleans, or taken from temporary shelters set up in outlying city districts.  The van loads of animals came in anywhere from about 10 p.m. to the wee hours of the morning, and the people were waiting to check the dogs in, give them water and a decontaminating bath and pet and feed and talk to them before they settled these traumatized animals in for the night and let themselves fall into a sleeping bag.  Their best night was one on which 88 dogs were brought in.

Every day they fed dogs and walked dogs and cleaned dog runs.  They cleaned cat cages and fed and watered them.  They filled a plastic wading pool for the goose and rigged wire cages for chickens.  They watered dogs and washed dog dishes.  They got up during the night to walk a two-hour security shift because local people were cutting the fences to steal dogs to use for dog fights, and still got up and worked to help these animals all day long.   They unloaded vans and trucks of donations that came in every day-more food and medicine and dishes and sheets and blankets and ‘people snacks’.  They worked with the vets to check the animals’ health and give shots and make sure all the treatments were recorded to go with the dogs to their foster homes – or back to their owners.  They cleaned and sorted and built and did it some more and they congratulated each other on jobs finished – and went to find new ones to start.

They walked around with groups who came to take animals all over the country to be fostered out, animals going to Iowa and New York, Kentucky, New Jersey, Tennessee and Illinois, riding in carriers with food and water, stacked in vans and one bunch in a fancy tour bus, their cages filling the seats usually taken by people going to a casino or dinner theater.  They shed happy – and sad- tears when animals left, because they were going to get homes once more, and because they would miss them – but more would come in that night.

They worked in 90 plus degree heat and 100% plus humidity and kept reminding each other to drink lots of water so they did not get sick themselves.  They grabbed snacks from the tent filled with ‘people food’ donations, and ate Chinese food and grilled cheese sandwiches brought in by the Humane Society director.  One night they got a real treat - a ‘red beans and rice’ dinner for everyone, served up the country road at a place that doubled as the local laundromat, snack bar and game room  – and they ate in shifts so that some one was always with the animals.  They sat late at night and talked about their own animals at home – and ones they might give a foster home to, hoping for the original owner’s sake that they can be reunited but underneath that hoping a bit that this survivor can stay with them, because they have become attached, even thought they said when they came that they would not.

They laughed about the cows that wandered through one area of tents every morning, and about showering up the road in stalls the Red Cross hastily put together – on the lawn of the area Baptist church!  They laughed at animal antics.  They laughed about all the food brought in being vegetarian, because Jeff is one.  They laughed at silly things that happened during the day. They laughed a lot.

They cried, too -  over what the animals had been through, and they cried when one left for a home – and they cried when they left themselves, because they had been part of a team – and they said “See you next hurricane!” – and they left part of their hearts and their generosity at Camp Katrina – for the animals.

When Hurricane Katrina hit, the Humane Society Director and the shelter’s manager lost their homes.  Jeff was living in his mini-van and Johnna was sleeping on a couch in the living room of the house, the room that tripled as the shelter office, veterinary storage area and animal operating room.  Their personal losses were never mentioned while they helped the animals and constantly thanked the volunteers for what they were doing.  

When I left after spending nine days at Camp Katrina I was astounded at the order that had been brought to the chaos there was when I arrived.  The veterinarians actually had a place to work.  The supplies were sorted and under cover – you could find a leash or a towel or a trash bag or a snack.  The carport was closed in to make more room for recovering animals.  There was talk of closing in the porch so the cats could live there and the kitchen could actually be used by people – Wow!  There were more runs and a security fence around all the dog pens.  The roof was fixed and there was a real light in the bathroom of the house.  There was much more to do, but there were new people coming in.  They’ll do it.  They’ll do it for the animals.

I cried when I left.