Hurricane Irene

Jack wrote this and asked me to post it.

When Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans some people died because they would not leave without their animals and the American Red Cross would not allow animals into their shelters. The Red Cross realized that they needed to do something. The solution was to require all communities in the country to have a plan to shelter animals during times of disasters. The Red Cross, however, still would not allow animals to be in their shelters.

Long before Katrina the Harwich Police Department had put in place a plan to shelter animals at the Cape Cod Regional Technical High School in Harwich. The plan was to use the Auto Body Shop, which is in the lower level of the school, as a shelter. People evacuating to the Red Cross shelter at the Tech could also bring their animals. The animals would be kept in an area separate from the Red Cross shelter but still accessible within the building. After the legal wording and documents were taken care of the FIRST human/animal shelter on the Cape was established.

With further planning and meetings over the years the concept of “Regional” shelters for Cape Cod (and I think all of Massachusetts) was established. The Cape Cod Tech was designated the regional shelter for the Towns of Harwich, Brewster and Chatham.

On Saturday August 27, 2011 with Hurricane Irene bearing down on New England the order to open the regional shelters was given. I hooked up the “Emergency Animal Services” trailer, which was obtained through a grant from HSUS, and headed for the Tech. Lynda loaded her work truck with some supplies, met with Meg McDonough, the Chatham Police Animal Control Officer, hooked up her trailer and met me at the Tech.  We posted signs along the driveway of the Tech leading to the animal shelter. Then the equipment and crates that are stored in the trailers were unloaded and within an hour we were open to receive animals.

Cape Cod was spared the brunt of Irene but there were numerous trees down and wide spread power outages. There were not many evacuees at the shelter and we only got 4 dogs (not counting our own) and a cat. Because of the slow moving nature of this storm we were open to receive animals from 5:30 Saturday evening until 12:00 noon on Monday. We did not get much sleep but were happy knowing that anyone that wanted to shelter would have a place where their pet would be welcome.

Monday afternoon we got to go home again and were told by Lynda’s Mum that the electricity had gone off at about 10:00 am on Sunday. Luckily the power finally came back on at about 3:00 pm on Monday.  Neither Lynda’s Mum’s house nor ours sustained any damage other than both properties are covered with small branches and thousands of leaves. I know what I will be doing tomorrow on my only day off!

The most important thing is that Lynda’s Mum and her animals and Lynda , Dylan, Ivan, Owen and Lamont are all okay.