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Second Trip to the Hurricane Katrina Region Here are some photos of the devastation in Gulfport, MS. even 6 weeks after Hurricane Katrina. The red and white trailer is where they are having to store the donated food and cat litter. The other building is their old shelter. The new one that was due to open on November 1, 2005 is or was several miles away but is now totally destroyed. They have done the best they could with what little they have had to work with. You can see from the photos that the other items are being stored outside. The campers and tents in the surrounding area are where the out of state volunteers (Fla, Ala, Ga, VA. and many others) have been living as there are no available hotel rooms in town. The pictures of the buildings (or what used to be buildings) is what is left of downtown Gulfport. The debris is pushed up in big piles everywhere along the street. Furniture, sheet rock, wood and brick alike are all just mangled together. The shelter housed 126 animals at the time the storm hit and 103 were saved. 23 drowned in their cages or kennels because they never had experienced more than 10-11 inches of water before and we could still see the water mark where it reached at least 4 feet in the kennel and office areas. They had put all the animals in the highest areas possible but could never have imagined they would get that much water. I could tell in talking with some of the people who were the ones that regularly cared for these animals they would forever feel guilty for these animals perishing. One girl, Amy (on the left in the photo) told me she could never do "this" again. I told her, yes, she could because it was in her blood and she could NOT do anything else if it came down to it. She tearfully looked me in the eye and said, "You're probably right but right now I just can't see how I would survive it". Later, before we left she hugged me and said that she knew now that I was right!! And that she knew she was where she was suppose to be!! We had a person that donated some office supplies and Amy who was the adoption coordinator for the shelter got so excited over a desk organizer that the person had sent. It amazed me that something so trivial made such a difference in her. It was like she could see her office coming to life again. Her office was where they had put many of the animals that had perished because it was a couple of steps up and they thought it would be safer there. I think she is still having a hard time seeing that room as it was before, after finding those animals when they returned after the storm. They are trying to hire people to work as all of
the regular workers have left the area because they have no homes or
schools or for the most part any jobs. The people who have managed to
stay are living in the hotels that survived the hurricane. Some of the
local stores such as Wal-mart and Sam's had opened only a few days
before we arrived. They have been sharing their donated food and
supplies with the County Shelter, as well as, the local residents who
had stayed and had no way of getting food for their own animals that
survived. We were told that the truckload (Metro truck seen in the
photo) we had brought would only last about a week but maybe a little
longer now since the stores were open. But most people had no money so
the stores being open would not totally solve the problem. Their kennels
were spotless and the animals were being cared for both physically and
mentally. These people have done tremendous work with very little
resources. This should inspire us to continue our work as individual
rescues and to remember this could have been US!!! |