Saturday's Atlanta Journal Constitution had a lead story (pg 3a) on disaster planning with pets, presenting a great opportunity for letters to the editor. I will paste the article below. The paper takes letters at http://www.ajc.com/opinion/content/opinion/letters/sendletter.html
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
June 3, 2006 Saturday
NEWS; Pg. 3A
Prepare to take your pet; Katrina's lessons: Animal rescuers, officials meet to discuss how to deal with family pets in evacuations; two Georgians demur on House bill.
BOB DART
Arlington, Va. --- Fetch Fido, too, when you flee the flood.
That was the message as nearly 700 pet advocates gathered in this Washington suburb for the National Conference on Animals in Disasters.
As another summer hurricane season opens, "take your pets with you" if ordered to evacuate, said Richard Rice, who manages the Humane Society's Southeast regional office in Atlanta.
The three-day conference, which concluded Friday, brought together animal rescuers from around the country and officials from the federal Homeland Security and Agriculture departments to build on the lessons learned from last summer's Hurricane Katrina.
That tragedy demonstrated that "emergency preparedness is important for all members of a household, including pets," said George Foresman, the Department of Homeland Security's undersecretary for preparedness.
Disaster planning must include pets because many people "are just not going to leave" unless they can take their animals, he told the conference.
Six of every 10 American households have at least one pet, according to the Humane Society of the United States, sponsor of the conference.
About 10,000 stranded pets were rescued along the Gulf Coast after Katrina, but no one knows how many thousands died in the storm and its aftermath, said Randy Covey, director of disaster services for the Humane Society.
Extrapolating from national averages, he said, 600,000 pets were affected by hurricanes Katrina and Rita.
Last week, the House overwhelmingly passed the Pets Evacuation and Transportation Standards Act, which requires consideration of people with pets in setting up disaster response plans.
Sens. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) and Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.) have introduced similar legislation on the other side of the Capitol.
"Losing a home in a disaster is traumatic, but losing a beloved family pet makes it even more devastating," Lautenberg said. "We saw many people in New Orleans who refused to leave without their pets, putting themselves in more danger. If there had been a plan to evacuate people with their pets, we might have saved some human lives as well as many animals."
Among the few dissenters in the House vote were Georgia Republicans Lynn Westmore-land and Charlie Norwood, who said they are animal lovers but complained the bill would impose unfunded federal mandates on states and divert funds needed for human rescues.
At the conference, the experts stressed that the best solution is for pet owners to plan ahead for possible disaster.
The Humane Society and the Department of Homeland Security have both prepared free pamphlets on disaster preparedness for pets. Both warn that most public emergency evacuation shelters don't admit animals, so preparation is vital.
"Consider family and friends willing to take you in and your pets in an emergency," says the Homeland Security pamphlet, available online at www.ready.gov. "Other options may include a hotel or motel that takes pets or a boarding facility, such as a kennel or veterinary hospital, that is near an evacuation facility."
In Georgia, the state agriculture department has certified 15 to 20 "pet-friendly" emergency shelters, said Rice.
As with their human neighbors on the Gulf Coast, many pets were evacuated to Georgia after Katrina, said Rice. Some flew into Marietta's Dobbins Air Reserve Base with their owners. Many more animals had been abandoned or separated and were taken to shelters for adoption, he said.
Joe Burkett, a volunteer pet protector from Austin, Texas, financed his own pet rescue trip to New Orleans after Katrina. One of the deserted, malnourished dogs he rescued is now among his own pets. Saving pets after the storm was "a soul-searching experience when you're called upon to go into a house to find an attack dog," he said.
But if another hurricane hits, he said, he will go back "in a heartbeat."
(END OF AJC article)
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Date: Mon Jun 5 14:33:13 2006
