GONZALES, La. – A Naples woman and four others from northern Maine have been caring intensively for hundreds of animal victims of Hurricane Katrina and the devastating floods that followed in its wake.
In a makeshift office on the stony grounds of the Lamar-Dixon Exposition Center, a sprawling fairground in the modest, rural community of Gonzales, about 40 miles northwest of the ruined city of New Orleans, Roni Cohen of Naples, Maine, was wrapping up a nine-day stint in Gonzales and preparing to fly with a group of dogs to an adoption shelter in Florida.
Cohen said she just packed up and came after watching television coverage of the animals’ plight.
“I just couldn’t stand to watch it anymore, those poor animals stuck on rooftops and up in trees, jumping into that contaminated water to get to the rescue boats. I was appalled at the lack of planning,” she said.
Cohen, who grew up in Portland and whose late father, Joseph Friedman, was a longtime resident of Bangor, said it’s likely that many of the rescued pets will go unclaimed by their families.
Amy Gentle, Wendy Bonneville and Pat Pinkham of the Bangor area and Jennifer Howlett of Presque Isle pitched small tents on the fairground. In the sweltering heat and humidity, they took charge of the animals – starving, dehydrated and caked with caustic filth – as they arrived by the truckload each day from recovery missions into the city.
The Maine workers bathed the new arrivals, checked them for obvious health problems, and provided each with its own clean, safe crate or cage. Several times a day, they made rounds to clean the cages and provide each creature with fresh water, food, exercise and affection.
They readied the strongest for transfer to other, more permanent facilities to await adoption or reunion with their owners and watched carefully over the weaker ones to help them recover.
In a telephone interview before she returned Sunday to Maine, Jennifer Howlett, a humane agent with the Maine Department of Agriculture, said she was allowed to go on rescue missions into the flooded city, looking for animals. Despite temperatures in the mid-90s each day, she said, the rescuers wore full-body rubber suits to protect them from the contaminated floodwater.
“The water is so toxic, it burns your skin to touch it,” she said. One of her co-workers developed a small hole on the leg of his protective suit; by the end of the day he had a third-degree burn where the water had seeped in.
As the brackish, contaminated floodwaters recede, she explained, a crust of salt deposits, decomposing animal waste, garbage, sewage and chemicals has formed, supporting a lush growth of mold and mildew.
“There’s just no way to describe this odor,” she said.
Back at the fairground, which has a dozen modern, steel-construction agricultural buildings, about 1,500 pet dogs, cats, rabbits, snakes, birds, goats, horses, tropical fish and other animals are being sheltered, with dozens more arriving daily.
On any given day, between 400 and 500 workers are on the site, according to Belinda Major, public relations manager for the Humane Society of the United States, which is spearheading the rescue operation.
The president of the Humane Society of the United States, Wayne Pascelle, has set up an office in a recreational vehicle next to one of the barns. Pascelle said he’s under pressure to relocate the rescue operation by the middle of October so the fairground can be used for other purposes. He doesn’t have an alternative lined up yet, he said.
Pascelle said the massive animal rescue operation is unprecedented, and he faulted the federal government for having no plan for dealing with homeless pets in the event of a disaster. “If groups like HSUS didn’t step in, animals would get no aid at all,” he said.
“My hat is off to the people who have made this rescue possible,” he added, looking around at the many toiling workers. “This is like a war zone setting – there is real hardship, privation and danger, and no comfort zone at the end of the day.”
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