Members of the Sedgwick County Animal Response Team (SCART), a nonprofit organization dedicated to educating the public about how to handle pets during disasters, were on-site washing away summertime smelliness, clipping nails and pulling out sticker burrs.

For a suggested $20 donation, dog owners left with fresh-smelling pets and a packet of information instructing them how to prepare for an emergency.

A cocker spaniel named Dexter gets a bath on Saturday The dog wash was a benefit for the Sedgwick County Animal Response Team. (Photo: Travis Heying/The Wichita Eagle)

According to the article, SCART’s first big challenge was helping after the Greensburg tornado, which illustrated the need for public education on animal preparedness, according to the team director, veterinarian Christen Skaer:

She and a group of volunteers scoured the town in the days after the tornado, looking for pets in need, many who had been left behind by owners who assumed they’d return quickly to their homes.

“There were about 350 we cared for,” she said, “and very few of them were ever returned home.”

A survey showed that of the people who failed to evacuate their homes after Hurricane Katrina, 44 percent said that they didn’t want to leave their pets behind, Skaer said.

Having a plan in place that allows people to evacuate with their animals saves human and animal lives, Skaer said.

“It makes our jobs a lot easier,” she said. “There’s not a team in the world that can rescue all the animals affected by a disaster, so it helps if people are prepared.”

Thanks to the @SteveisReady Twitter feed for bringing this event to my attention.

New Twitter user and pet preparedness expert, Jade Thompson

According to a story on the American Red Cross website, “Knowing Pet First Aid Can Save Your Best Friend’s Life,” Chris has rescued Jade on a couple of occasions, including most recently on this past July 4th:

Chris recounts several lessons she learned from this nightmare scenario.

“Just like a child, even if they are not intending to swim, pets should have a life jacket on,” said Thompson.

She also added, “You actually can revive a dog if you react quickly enough. You just need to know how to resuscitate him. I am very grateful for what Red Cross classes taught me.”

Chris, who runs her own disaster response non-profit group, Humanity Road, hopes she and Jade can turn their scary experiences into a positive by disseminating helpful information to pet owners through the new Twitter feed which you can find here.

There’s a new emergency notification service for pets. Well, it’s not for notifying pets, but for notifications regarding pets when an emergency occurs…

Here’s how it works. If, say, emergency medical technicians respond to a call and residents are taken away, the EMTs will have a number to call to activate the notification system. It will then call friends or family pre-designated by the pet owners, instructing them to come get the pets. Signs would be posted around the house, providing the number and instruction to responders.

Or, if a subscriber wants, it can receive a daily check-in from Pets Guardian to confirm that the pet is OK.

When my neighborhood was evacuated because of Delaware River flooding a few years ago, I had less than 24 hours to prepare. I packed a suitcase and grabbed important documents — but then I suddenly realized that I didn’t have a plan for my pets.

Fortunately, a local groomer offered to take in my dogs, but I couldn’t find a refuge for my cats. I was staying with friends who had severe cat allergies, so taking them with me wasn’t an option. Instead, I filled up a few litter boxes and set out several bowls of water and food.

And then I had to leave…

Based on her own experience, Parker-Pope urges other pet owners to prepare, including going to Ready.Gov, the Federal Emergency Management Administration website and:

In addition to gathering important documents like passports and birth certificates, disaster preparedness also means collecting veterinary records. One of the reasons I couldn’t board my cats during my flooding crisis was that I had misplaced my cats’ vaccination information, and no boarding facility would take them without it.

I would add one other thing to this article that pet owners should know and do — find out whether the local emergency shelter will accept pets. As FEMA points out:

Identifying shelter. For public health reasons, many emergency shelters cannot accept pets. Find out which motels and hotels in the area you plan to evacuate to allow pets — well in advance of needing them. There are also a number of guides that list hotels/motels that permit pets and could serve as a starting point. Include your local animal shelter’s number in your list of emergency numbers — they might be able to provide information concerning pets during a disaster.

After Hurricane Katrina, emergency managers realized that in most disaster situations pet owners were not going to leave their pets no matter what the authorities say. So, a number of local emergency management offices, including here in New York City, integrated pet care into their evacuation shelters. I think it was a smart move and an example of government listening to the public on disaster response. (And, pet owners are among the most prepared and politically active demographic on emergency readiness in the population.)

However, the City officials have not publicized this availability, because it would rather have New Yorkers make advance evacuation plans for their pets. I understand the ambivalence, but I believe that not being completely upfront on that policy can send confusing messages to the public and can get in the way of full, accurate planning.

In the short video, Allison explains the steps every pet owner should do to prepare their animals for emergencies. In the background there is a Golden Retriever, Hunter, who stopped by (with his owner) to be microchipped and have a ‘go bag’  photo taken. I have found that pet owners tend to be among the most prepared groups, but I’m sure Allison’s recommendations will be helpful.

Allison Cardona, ASPCA, Disaster Response Director

Napolitano is right. If there’s one preparedness-related task Americans should do first it’s asking (and then trying to answer) that simple question — what would my family do in the event of an emergency? But I would suggest that simple question is not so simple for individuals to answer by themselves. Family emergency planning cannot totally be done in the family vacuum. To do it most effectively, citizens also need to know the plans of the institutions they are involved with — their workplace, kids’ school, elderly relative’s nursing home, governmental authorities, neighbors, etc.

In a recent National Preparedness Month speech, Napolitano made another related request of the public: that they go to some of those institutions, “raise your hand and ask ‘what’s our plan?’” (FEMA Administrator Craig Fugate has been emphasizing the primacy of planning in his public statements as well.)

I think that both of the questions Napolitano suggests Americans ask are closely tied and should be answered together. In fact, I don’t think you can really develop your own plan without knowing what the other places are doing. (And, I would further suggest that the lack of citizen compliance to date is that we don’t think that doing our own plan individually — without other stakeholders — will be all that useful in an emergency with family members spread all over.)

As part of that process it’s also up to governments, particularly at a local level, to tell the public more about their emergency plans to help us make ours. The idea is not that members of the public know every scenario but that they are at least familiar with what the possibilities are — that they are not hearing it for the first time after something happens. A survey released Friday by the National Homeland Defense Foundation and Colorado Technical University found that 94 percent of homeland security professionals don’t think Americans know the appropriate steps to take if a terrorist attack were to happen in their hometown.

DHS SECRETARY NAPOLITANO (ABOVE) GIVING A NATIONAL PREPAREDNESS MONTH SPEECH WITH FEMA ADMINISTRATOR CRAIG FUGATE AND AMERICAN RED CROSS PRESIDENT GAIL MCGOVERN LOOKING ON.

And, the planning process should not be a one-way and top-down. The public should have input on not only their own plans. In addition, to the knowledge they can impart, institutions should not be designing plans that may not be realistic for the people they are planning for.

Take the issue of pet preparedness and response. Animal protection groups made the point that it was not realistic to plan that pet owners would be willing to leave their animals in an emergency (a contention borne out during Katrina and something I have witnessed during CERT deployments on building collapses here in New York City). So, many governments altered their policies to allow pets in emergency shelters (though they would still prefer owners make out of area arrangements if possible on predicted disasters like hurricanes.) That change in policy only came when all stakeholders came together and thought through the planning and realized that the ideal was not the reality. The same kind of attention is now necessary for the entire public.

The fact that every family’s plan involves other parts of the community is why I strongly believe that there needs to be one day in the year dedicated to the emergency planning process. If we as a nation feel it is really important for the public to develop emergency plans, it would be far more effective if everyone was doing that at the same time — rather than asking individuals to do it on their own so the planning can be integrated. This ‘preparedness day’ would also be the time that we all asked the questions about planning then practiced and updated those plans. (One helpful model is Japan’s Disaster Prevention Day, held on the anniversary of the catastrophic 1923 Tokyo earthquake.)

Among the questions that will come out of that type of drilling day include: Where would you go? Would it depend on the type of emergency? Would you be able to get out of work? Would your kids’ school want you to come there? One, if not the most important, question to answer is how would you communicate with each other as well as how would the authorities communicate with you as information may be the most crucial element in determining the answers (one result I think would be more social media/networking preparedness/training in advance.)

The fact is that families will never be able to fully answer all these ‘what if’ questions in advance; it will always depend to some extent on circumstances (ie. evacuating vs. sheltering in place), but this day would at least begin the preparedness process.  It would be the time to think through some scenarios and link together some of the institutions/people families would need to rely on in a disaster. Ultimately, if we want people to ask the right questions on emergency preparedness, we need to help them find the answers.

In the short video, Allison explains the steps every pet owner should do to prepare their animals for emergencies. In the background there is a Golden Retriever, Hunter, who stopped by (with his owner) to be microchipped and have a ‘go bag’  photo taken. I have found that pet owners tend to be among the most prepared groups, but I’m sure Allison’s recommendations will be helpful.

ALLISON CARDONA, ASPCA DISASTER RESPONSE DIRECTOR (ABOVE)

Unfortunately, the event was held during a rain storm (see photo below) so we did the interview inside the organization’s trailer located in the middle of Manhattan’s Union Square. For more information about emergency preparedness for pets, go to the ASPCA’s website here.

THE ASPCA/NYC OEM PET PREPAREDNESS EVENT IN NEW YORK’S UNION SQUARE; THE ASPCA TRAILER IS BEHIND THE TENT

The change had been made previously but it had not been publicly announced, according to a New York City Office of Emergency Management spokesperson.

I checked with OEM after receiving a call on air during last week’s show. The caller, “Mira from Oceanside”, urged pet owners to prepare for disasters in part because they would not be allowed in emergency shelters. 

The change comes as a result of discussions between the City, the animal protection community and pet owners. To me, it is a case study in how public preparedness policy should be made combining increased citizen responsibility with responsive government.

Though the shelters should be viewed as a place of last resort for animals during a disaster, the City will no longer turn away people with pets. 

Among the emergency preparations pet owners should be making in advance:

*a ‘Go-Bag’ for each animal;

*establishing a place to keep the pet outside of the disaster area if there is warning; and

*microchipping the pet with the owner’s information in case they are lost

Here in New York, the Mayor’s Alliance for New York City Animals  will be microchipping dogs and cats at their adoption festivals throughout the City at the discount rate of $25. Check their web site for places and times.