March 18, 2006
By E.B. FURGURSON III, Staff Writer
Annapolis Capital - Annapolis,MD
Some people along the Gulf Coast must wish the federal government reacted as efficiently after Hurricane Katrina as Noah's Wish, the team of animal rescue volunteers that swept into Louisiana to save thousands of stranded, wounded and starving animals.
Photo: Two dogs excited to be rescued after Hurricane Katrina hia
But that organization's effort wasn't by happenstance. It was the result of experience and the same intensive training about 80 people are undergoing in Edgewater this weekend.
There they're learning everything from how to organize a disaster-response site to how to care for animals and each other.
Patty Feldt of Cape St. Claire wanted to get involved in Noah's Wish after seeing news stories of Gulf Coast animal rescues.
Other pet lovers apparently felt the same way: The organization's training sessions have become increasingly popular.
"I wanted to come to this one, but it was already booked up," Ms. Feldt said yesterday at the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center. "So I had to go to the training in St. Louis a few weeks ago."
This weekend she is a volunteer, helping out with the day and night training sessions that not only lay out the regimen of the 375-plus page "Noah's Wish Volunteer Field Operations Guide," but also simulate disaster conditions - eating food packed by volunteers, dozing in sleeping bags or on cots, and surviving without showers.
"The only thing worse is the real thing," said spokesman Luiza Grunebaum, from New York. She also attended the St. Louis session, where bathrooms went on the fritz the first day. "And we had to sleep through snoring you wouldn't believe."
Those hardships pale compared to the heart-wrenching conditions suffered by animals in disasters that the organization has responded to. Pets abandoned by their evacuating owners sit wounded, or stranded without food and water until help arrives.
Its volunteers were on the ground for 93 days in Slidell, La., after Katrina. There, they saved 2,000 animals and fed thousands more.
Mailing Address:
P.O. Box 997
Placerville, CA 95667
Street Address:
5047 Robert J. Matthews Parkway Suite 200
El Dorado Hills, CA 95762
(916) 939-9474
Fax: (916) 939-9479
E-mail: info@noahswish.org
Noah's Wish is a not-for-profit, 501(c)(3), charitable organization.
"We reunited 75 percent of those 2,000 animals with their owners," said Sheri Thompson, assistant director of field operations for Noah's Wish, who led the post-Katrina effort.
She also has responded to tornadoes, fires, floods - and the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, when she and others treated rescue dogs working in the rubble of the World Trade Center.
Eric Rice of Annapolis went to the Gulf Coast after Katrina and worked with three animal rescue outfits. He decided to get formal training this weekend after seeing the effort on the ground.
"Noah's Wish was by far the best organized and well trained group," said Mr. Rice, who grew up on a Garrett County farm with some 40 dogs, most of them saved.
He started caring for animals when he was 14. "I rode my bike to the animal shelter and they gave me a dog." That was it.
Beverly Beach resident Amy Bleich has been involved in local animal rescue efforts, including Partnership for Animal Welfare. She was looking to get involved and found this weekend's training session.
"What could be better than it happening in my own back yard?" she said before being shown animal resuscitation techniques on a stuffed cat.
The rest of the training runs the gamut from how to set up a rescue center, communications, search and rescue procedures, and what Director of Educational Programs Wade Beane called, "the guts of our operations - intake, reclaim and foster care."
Every animal is cleaned, photographed, scanned for identity chips or assigned an identification number, treated for injuries and thoroughly documented.
Ms. Thompson said when animals are rescued from a property, a tag is put on the house with all the information: "What animal was taken, when, and to where. We leave the phone number, hours of operation and headquarters information. Then we go back in three days and re-post the information."
If nothing happens after a longer period of time, volunteers send a certified letter, which is usually forwarded to wherever a pet owner might have evacuated.
Volunteer will also take care of animals while their owners get their own lives back together, some for up to two years.
"We try to keep them near their owners," Ms. Thompson said. "We are not just (helping) animals, but people, too."
Over 1,000 volunteers have been through the training since the group, based in California, was founded in 2002. Another 500 should be added by the end of the year. One couple came all the way from Nebraska for this weekend's sessions.
Rescue operations have been worldwide, with Noah's Wish rushing to sites inundated by the tsunami in the Indian Ocean, and floods in Romania.
Private donations keep the organization going. About $750,000 has been spent in Louisiana on veterinary care alone.
They have other help too. Purina delivered a tractor trailer load of its most nutritious food to Louisiana, and has agreed to lend a hand in other efforts. Others send what they can, a bag of food, a collar.
Local individuals do their part, too. Their stories motivate volunteers, and help them get through the emotionally draining work.
Jo Ellen Cimmino, Noah's director of animal health services, said a man in Slidell saved three dogs from the Katrina storm surge by carrying them up a tree and holding them there until help came.
"They did not know him. They were scared. They would fall out and he would go into the water to get them and climb back up the tree," she said. "He got bit, but he never let go."
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The next training session in the Mid-Atlantic region is in Alexandria, Va., July 7-9. For more information about Noah's Wish, visit www.noahswish.org/.
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