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Storm recovery an epic job

After Katrina, stray pets find shelter--and sometimes their owners--at an exhibition center in Louisiana

By RUSTY DENNEN

Date published: 9/17/2005

GONZALES, La.--In this small community beside Interstate 10 south of Baton Rouge sits the Lamar Dixon Exhibition Center, with its rows of cavernous buildings set up much like the Virginia State Fair.

In the wake of Hurricane Katrina, it's humming with activity, but not from the usual families with smiling children enjoying a day of fun and food.

The center has become one of the largest repositories of hurt and starving stray animals rescued from neighborhoods in and around the devastated city of New Orleans.

Every day, from before dawn until well after dark, thousands of pet owners who have been separated from their normal lives and their beloved animals walk the corridors. They cling to hope of finding dogs, cats, horses, parrots, snakes and even rodents left behind as they fled the flooded city.

Adele Potts, accompanied by friend Beanie Klumpp, walked for hours Thursday, checking for any sign of her 5-year-old boxer, Porsche. Eyes red from crying, she stopped for a moment beside the busy check-in table where animals of all types were coming in the gate.

Attendants took a Polaroid picture of each animal, then sent it on to the next stop, where veterinarians and student volunteers were examining them. After that, they were taken to a massive holding area nearby.

"I'm just afraid someone will come here and take my dog," Potts said.

This has been a life-changing couple of weeks for the New Orleans resident.

Pausing for a moment, she added: "My house and my car are flooded. And now, I've lost my dog."

Potts had taken Porsche to a shelter a few days before the storm because she was going on an out-of-town trip. She returned to find that the shelter had not been flooded, but something just as devastating had happened.

"Someone had opened all the doors and all the animals were gone."

As soon as the scope of Katrina's damage became evident, volunteers with animal rescue groups from all over the country--including Virginia--and the U.S. Humane Society, converged on the Gulf Coast to help rescue people's pets. All around the stricken areas, animals wandered, eating whatever they could find and drinking the putrid water that still floods parts of the city.

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Date published: 9/17/2005