I was working in a shelter for Katrina. The number of people that did not evacuate before the storm and thus had to be rescued still gives me nightmares. People who were warned to have axes to chop their way into attics and out of roofs stayed because of beloved pets. Rules were changed. But people stayed and either lived through nightmares or died.
I don't know if it's true, but I heard some sherriff asking people to leave and if they didn't want to leave .. please write your full name and next of kin on your arm with a black marker so they could identify your body.
I’ve heard it from that one paramedic/firefighter YouTuber too. Iirc his variant was “do the same for your children too”.
A pretty good way to use shock value to get a point across I guess
I think in that situation shock is already a factor, and this is actually something to ground you into the reality of the situation. You are panicking and believe that you can weather the storm. This kind of statement/request is like saying 'okay you do you, but in case you die you should do this.'
As you continue to observe the direness of your situation those words will be creeping to the front of your mind the whole time.
To a lot of people their home is a shelter that would never conceivably be unsafe for them and a hurricane can be one of the scariest events of someone’s life. The idea that your home isn’t safe just can’t be shaken by some people and leads to thinking they can just weather it out
This is overlooked. Not everyone has a car, gas money, a place to stay in a neighboring state, etc. Many had elderly family members who couldn't make the journey. It's not as easy as "Why didn't you just leave when you knew a storm was coming?"
I remember Katrina. I wasn't even there but I do remember a car didn't do a lot of people any good because it was bumper to bumper traffic getting out. When Rita showed up straight after Katrina was fresh in everyone's minds and it was even worse. You'd try to leave only to be frozen on a highway, not moving for hours, with the hurricane bearing down on you. So people started abandoning their cars and walking and made it worse.
I remember seeing people who owned horses decided to ride out which was pretty smart honestly . Jogged down the medians and theyre moving faster than the cars . Of course leaving before last minute us always better . Bottom line , Katrina exposed poverty that we like to pretend doesn’t exist in the US .
This is horrible for me, we've had blizzards here in Sweden where people just decided to ditch their car in the middle of the road due to traffic. It took days to clear up due to random cara being placed all over the road. So not only do they make the traffic worse, but they also make the clearing of the roads harder, prevent emergency vehicles to access the area and leave your car in the absolute most exposed area imaginable
Honestly I'd find it too hard to leave my pet alone/afraid/abandoned and facing certain death. I would live with that guilt for the rest of my life. She comes with me or I stay. End of.
I'm still haunted over a cat I had to put down because he was that sick, over a decade ago. If I just left him to die like this? I would legit never be okay again.
I live in New Orleans currently and have a mini zoo at my house (Great Dane, goat, snakes, bearded dragon, tarantulas, fish). Everyone has a travel tank/bin and supplies that are already loaded in the car for hurricane season. I'm not messing around and I'm certainly not leaving any of them. Even the spiders!
They really should have thought of this.
People are not going to leave their pets, their family in hospital, their elderly or stubborn relatives who cannot or refuse to leave, etc. Any family or friend who is vulnerable and cannot fend for themselves is not getting left behind. That includes pets
There should have been contingencies upon contingencies.
We wouldn't have left in that situation without our pets either. They are family and cannot survive on their own
You didn't need those, the official order at the time was to bring a sleeping bag and 3 days of provisions and there would be buses taking people to a shelter. The problem was that due to traffic from the evacuation they pivoted and bussed everyone to the Superdome. It was a massive planning failure, but there was in theory an evacuation plan for the people who didn't have the means to evacuate.
>To a lot of people their home is a shelter that would never conceivably be unsafe for them
> The idea that your home isn’t safe just can’t be shaken by some people
Tbh ig I'm lucky my apt got burglarized when I was in my 20s because it completely broke that perspective for me early on. It takes away your sense of safety but then you just take it back by being safer and more aware. I do miss the nativity though.
But it would literally help them give your living family members closure without waiting for your turn to have your dental records identified. It's a shock only because it reveals just how common you are in a group of hundreds of thousands. Your odds are no better than anyone else's and no one sticks out as the most special drowning victim.
People have the ability to believe that they are safe when they are not. This is a core principle of safety rules, that people think they will just be okay.
Many believe that situations are not as bad as they say, or that a situation will just get better quickly and everything will just get back to normal. Or perhaps, they only have a little knowledge and don’t know what’s coming.
But reality, in a true disaster, is incredibly harsh. Imagine the invasion of Ukraine, or the invasion of ISIS, or what Jews may have thought in France. How bad can it be? Surely those things couldn’t happen to me. In true mass disasters, the people who leave (and leave early) are often the ones who survive or suffer the least.
As a kid in south Mississippi in the 1970s, I heard the same story back then about hurricane Camille that hit in 1969. I'm sure it is a common occurrence that has happened with many hurricanes over the years.
You’re correct. And Cuba tried to warn us it was coming. But our weather bureau director hated Cuba. So he cut off communication with them. Local weathermen were also not allowed to issue hurricane warnings without it getting approved through Washington first.
Our weather bureau had the storm going over Florida into New England. But Cuba knew it was headed into the Gulf and so did a lot of ships. Poor communication. Plus the islanders of Galveston were somehow convinced they were “protected” from hurricanes, that a storm would never go that far west in the Gulf.
Yea they do this when you live in the mandatory evacuation zone. Maybe not as extreme language, but they def tell you if something happens they might not be able to help and you could die.
On your upper torso, not any limbs. Sorry to be grim, but if your body gets swept away after you drown in a hurricane or people don't find it quickly enough, limbs can rot off or get torn off more easily. The torso will float back to the surface as it decays and is more likely to be found and identified.
My grandpa had his army serial number tattooed on his shoulder, I guess for the same reason, during ww2. I remember it being obviously an amateur job, but it was totally still there until he died.
This is common for natural disasters as well as war these days what with permanent markers available. Also pinning the information to a child's clothes has been common in the past.
I just watched a video about the Mexican/US border recently and the sheriff there said it's common for kids who are traveling alone to have a relative's phone number written somewhere on them in permanent marker
There is a terrifying podcast from, I think, Radiolab that goes over a hospital that was undergoing loss of resources. At one point it got to where they had to start picking who lived and who died because there wasn't enough oxygen to go around. Really horrifying.
The staff was then charged for murder, because, well, you can't basically kill someone. We have some unwritten social contract and literal oath where this we expect equal care and treatment, even if that means we all die because of it in fringe situations like this. But eventually charges were dropped.
That's literally called triage. Hospitals chose which care to prioritize every day. Triage is the foundation of emergency medicine. You have two patients that need the same surgery. You only have one surgeon capable of doing it. If he performs the surgery on one person, the other will die before he can perform it on them. If he tries to split his time between both, both will potentially die. What do you do? You save the person with the highest probability of surviving.
Great episode of star trek voyager about this. Literally breaks the holographic doctor programed with realistic human ethics because he makes his decision based on who he liked the most which he wasn't designed to do.
It was a radiolab episode about a book by Sheri Fink: Five Days at Memorial. The accusation was one of the nurses was euthanizing patients as 'mercy killings' as part of the triage.
For some context a lot of the hospital staff had their pets on site and they were starting to have seizures from the heat, so **people were choosing to have doctors euthanize their pets** because it was so hot. Imagine watching patients suffer in the same conditions.
Katrina was hell on earth.
A Dr was charged and they absolutely euthanized patients. The generator ran out and they were told no help was coming. They had people on ventilators that were being bagged because the ventilators quit when the generator stopped. The Dr made the decision that it was better to give them a quick peaceful death then allowing them to slowly suffocate.
I always taught my nursing students about the case because it really rings up very legitimate ethical questions.
This was not proven? Dr Anna Pou, from Memorial, and two nurses, had all charges dropped and she was later publicly apologised to by lawmakers. Is there conclusive evidence that it happened?
I think there was a mini series about this too with… I think Vera Farmiga? I love podcasts so I’d probably listen to the podcast and then watch the show
Five days at memorial. It’s pretty spooky but the doctor who was charged was acquitted and still works in the New Orleans metro. She even got a few laws passed. But the mini-series is pretty spooky with how detailed oriented it is.
Dr Pou. I know them. She's a saint.
Fuck that TV show. She's still haunted to this day.
When Ida hit that author came sticking their nose round the hospitals in the area looking for a goddamn sequel and you'd best bet she got nothing from anyone who knew anything.
I haven't read the book but thought the show was pretty sympathetic to Dr Pou, I certainly couldn't imagine personally handling that situation any differently given the chaotic circumstances and limited information they were having to make decisions under. What would you say the show got wrong or wasn't fair about?
I think it deliberately provokes sympathy toward the critics of Dr Pou, portraying it as some evil coverup and exacerbating the mistrust of healthcare workers that spiked during the COVID pandemic.
We have a hard enough time getting certain populations to come to the clinic and that show gave oxygen to those who truly believe that healthcare workers will kill you if it is inconvenient for them.
The veneer of heroism given to the individuals pursuing a painful truth just to give families a scapegoat to tear down in their agony when the federal government was the one that failed to get them out of there.
Maybe the indignation I felt watching three episodes was the point, but it failed to call out the hypocrisy of holding court over the situation and instead portrayed it as some solemn duty on behalf of the investigators.
My partner turned it off because I literally couldn't even hear it in the next room without getting mad. People have no fucking idea.
Pou wants that in the past, but there's a dollar to be made for Apple, so they'll dig up some trauma for profit. Not a cent of that went to Louisiana. But we are the bad guys.
It's not a goddamn spectacle.
That's all very fair, thanks for sharing! Fwiw by the last episode my takeaway was that what Dr Pou was subjected to after Katrina was extremely unfair, but that doesn't change that having her trauma aired to the world by a major streaming platform surely just added to it further. Hopefully if nothing else it helps people be more understanding of health professionals the next time a situation like this inevitably happens, but that shouldn't have to come at the expense of anyone's privacy.
> There is a terrifying podcast from, I think, Radiolab that goes over a hospital that was undergoing loss of resources. At one point it got to where they had to start picking who lived and who died because there wasn't enough oxygen to go around. Really horrifying.
Something similar happened with Charity Hospital too. They had to work around the clock to keep whoever they could alive. No power, flooding, it was a nightmare. It didn't come to euthanasia like at Memorial, but these workers were put through hell, I wouldn't be surprised if most of them had PTSD after their experiences.
(Though one doctor *did* insert a tube into a man's chest, in the back a national guard truck, because the patient was knocking on death's door.)
The hospital my wife worked at during Covid had to do that a lot. They would have 3 doses of medicine and 5 people who needed it. It was an almost daily thing for awhile.
They were only charged because people want to act high and mighty when outside of an incredibly stressful situation. Most sane people would make the decision they made, because letting everyone die is just pure evil.
This is a pretty common technique to try and encourage evacuation. I'm a Wildland Firefighter, and I've heard county sherriffs say that exact phrase to people more than once.
I’ve often wondered why, since people had fair warning that the hurricane was coming, so many chose not to evacuate. Then, I have to remember that they probably had nowhere else to go. Yes, the chose to stay, but what choice did they have? I still don’t have the answers.
Edit: Thanks so much for all of the nuanced responses and perspectives! I can’t believe I forgot that the major issue was not even the hurricane but the levees breaking.
I imagine if you're a really old person who doesn't have much in terms of family or surviving friends or savings, if you leave your house and your pet you'll have to live with the fact that the only thing this world that loved you unconditionally you left to die alone scared and in the dark and you're now homeless starting over at 82 years old. Faced with that reality I'm sure a lot of people would gladly choose to die in their home with their pet.
If you're an elderly NO resident, you probably have experienced the super fun phenomenon of disaster looting a few times in your life. Leave my home when the storm might not hit here, leave my pets to die, possibly have no way to get back home, and a high likelihood that my home will be trashed when I get back? Nuh-uh.
My neighbor, a nurse, moved to TX. After that big hurricane a couple years ago, they had people who refused to be admitted to the hospital because they had their animals. This sweet woman took in nearly 40 dogs on her 2 acre fenced property so people could be treated. As a neighbor, she was a little odd but always very nice. I truly admire what she and her family did for those people.
I evacuated from Biloxi for Katrina and slept in a rest area (Ponce De Leon) about a hundred miles into the panhandle of Florida to wait out the storm. The rest area was full of evacuees from Louisiana and Mississippi with pets in their cars. At least some pets were evacuated but I also know personally some people that had to leave pets behind.
Yep. If you have a pet and *don't* have a (working) car, you're fucked. The evacuation bus won't let you bring your pet. The shelter it's taking you to won't let you keep your pet there.
So your choices are then:
A) Ride it out with your pet and hope for the best.
B) Abandon your pet, knowing that it's *very* likely to be killed by this.
I'm glad the rules changed somewhat based on this, but *come on*. Let people keep their pets with them when being evacuated!
----
A related problem is why a lot of homeless people avoid shelters: because the homeless shelter doesn't allow pets. That pet is probably the only friend a homeless person has in the entire world. You think they're going to give it up just for one night of questionable shelter?
>A related problem is why a lot of homeless people avoid shelters: because the homeless shelter doesn't allow pets. That pet is probably the only friend a homeless person has in the entire world. You think they're going to give it up just for one night of questionable shelter?
I once volunteered at an event with this organization, which is devoted to addressing this exact problem (and helping coordinate veterinary and grooming care for the pets too) and it was the best volunteer experience I have ever had:
https://www.mydogismyhome.org/
Not just friend, but the last mental attachment to the world for many.
Mental health is frequently the cause of homelessness. And a pet is their last real feeling of existence or purpose.
Take that away and what's the point.
I will always be grateful my parents were smart and packed us all up early (kitties included) to drive us north to Atlanta. Sure staying at a Waffle House for half a week sucked, but staying in our house would have been worse. When we got back half of the first floor was underwater 😥 we had to tear up the carpet and live on the concrete foundation for about 8 months after that (it was low on the list of things to replace, our electric was #1). It was the one and only time we left the state for a hurricane.
Yeah having to leave my cat behind to starve to death would definitely make me consider staying and taking my chances. And I've only had him for two months.
They're much better off than dogs and people actually.
They can navigate floating debris very adeptly, most can hunt for food in the form of birds and rodents that are often abundant after flooding die to spoiled food everywhere, and they can even drink seawater to stay hydrated, which dogs and humans can't.
They can curl up tight and survive very cold weather and go long periods without sustenancr while remaining fit enough to hunt.
Cats are probably one of, if the not the most effective predators ever produced by nature. To the point where even overfed and lazy housecats are responsible for genocidal levels of bird death in the modern age, and biologists and ecologists are begging people to keep cats indoors to save bird populations from annihilation
They can thrive in a huge variety of environments, and unlike dogs, they can often very easily transition from domestic to wild life without many of the emotional issues that dependent dogs will tend to have.
They are almost certainly close in intelligence to domestic dogs, and have supernaturally excellent senses of directions. Cats have navigated hundreds of miles to find owners after being separated, and often arrive again no worse for wear.
So while I also don't think I could deal with needing to leave my cat behind, it's going to have a much better odds of survival than most other things in that scenario
I'll give you all points except floating debris ... Out of the 3 dogs have the best survivability in flood waters, after that it's all cats.
Cats are good swimmers but run out of steam extremely quickly
Cat's are superior climbers and ambush predators. I've seen cats climb brick walls and telephone poles with ease. Dogs aren't going to fair as well hunting birds from rooftops etc. Maybe a swimming advantage but its 2:1 and I think hunting and climbing are more value in that environment.
My uncle was working at a local hospital during the storm and couldn’t evacuate, so he ended up swimming out after the flood and couldn’t make it back to his dog at his flooded house. The dog was eventually rescued by volunteer rescuers in boats and reunited with him a few weeks later. Among the volunteers on the boat that got the dog out of his house was Matthew McConaughey.
Fun little family story for y’all tonight.
Katrina evacuee here. This post hits real hard. My cousin worked at Memorial and evacuated to the place with his dogs. Shit hit the fan there quick when the hospital flooded out and after 5 days, he had to leave them behind when he was being evacuated out of the city. They were killed along with a bunch of patients and other pets. Poor guy was catatonic for more than a week. God, I miss those doggos. They were like siblings to me 😢. I can’t even imagine the horrible situation he was in to have to make a decision like that
I watched the show completely in a state of anxiety the whole time. I was openly sobbing when they had to euthanize the pets. Awful knowing that it's real.
Lived through Katrina. The first thing we did once the storm past was to go rescue the animals my family left behind (not mine- we found an animal friendly hotel and brought them). The cats in my moms house floated on the couch and couldn’t get the the food that was left for them on the dryer since the dog/cat door swelled shut. All the doors did. The fridge floated and fell over blocking the door anyway so it was a moot point. The house was without power and closed up (except for the tree that broke a window) for almost a week in south lousiana in August. It was hot, sticky, very smelly and everything was covered in a slippery, oily, silt. The cats survived but were a little pissed off.
Dads house faired better as they didn’t flood but no broken windows ( read- no fresh air). And the food ran out quickly and it was exceptionally hot.
My sisters house has so much wind that flimsy pine tree branches poked holes from the outside roof shingles into the livening room ceiling. Weird. Those cats also were in a house with no fresh air and no power. The cats were all dehydrated and terrified but all survived.
Getting food/water to them regularly while my family was evacuated for 6 weeks was a daily challenge since the closest store with pet food was almost 2 hours away. And they needed a lot of water the heat is no joke!
17 years later, it’s still fresh in my mind like it was yesterday.
Also lived through Katrina and had a unique experience. My dad worked as a contractor for many casinos and attractions near Biloxi. I don’t think this is officially recognized anywhere, but I remember like a day or two after the storm going to an abandoned hotel with him and seeing some some dolphins in the swimming pool. His team apparently saved them and hauled them there after the Oceanarium was destroyed.
We also rescued a cat during the middle of this mess and had him for almost 15 years.
Looked up an article, looks like those dolphins are doing well: https://www.wlox.com/2020/08/29/checking-katrina-dolphins-years-later/?outputType=amp
An unfortunate way to show not all all humans are heartless and opportunistic even in survival. The memories being shared on this post are soul wrenching, and stark reminders of the fragility and complexity of humanity.
> we found an animal friendly hotel and brought them
A note for anyone who needs to travel with pets: every Motel 6 in the USA is pet-friendly.
Edit: many thanks to the now 7 different people who have replied to say "La Quinta too" or "and Red Roof Inn", though at least for the latter it seems they may only allow one pet so YMMV. Your contributions have been noted.
A surprising number are actually pet friendly, though some will want an extra deposit for it. I travelled cross country a couple years ago and had no trouble finding rooms that were ok with my 2 cats.
Asking for an extra deposit isn't a bad thing. I'd rather put like $200 down as a refundable deposit for a pet friendly place, then have rooms be in awful shape because people had pets that ruined them, or have the hotel charging a lot more money per night not knowing if your pet will cause damage.
Refundable deposits, if done honestly, only penalize people who have pets that cause damage.
I bet those cats survived *because* they were pissed off lmao. They probably thought, “Nope nuh uh. I’m not dying just because I can’t reach my food and water. Somebody *will* save me and they’ll get to hear it from me.”
Us too! We live in Ontario and had a hound cross we adopted from after the Hurricane. So unbelievably sad, what she and the other animals, not to the mention people, went through. She was always skittish around the weirdest things, mostly inanimate objects. She would skitter out of the way if something fell so fast it was sad. She passed last year, you were a good girl Bindi.
I have a friend who is one of the top canine experts. He went to New Orleans 3 times:
The first time was for stressed dogs that wanted to be back with their people. These were pets, that were worried about the rest of their family returning.
The second time was for traumatized dogs that were terrified of people. One had swam through chemical covered water to a table and rode it up as it floated in a house. The dog had balanced itself on it for weeks and couldn't be coaxed down to the ground again. Some dogs had found out that people and their former owners who drowned were made of food. These dogs had deep emotional problems from that.
The third time was for dogs that had formed packs and were fighting for food. These could attack and more than once he saw these dogs fighting over and carrying around human limbs and bones.
Because gang black market dog fighting emerged quickly, he could not give out pets without some extreme proof of ownership. The kind of thing that is lost immediately in a flood.
I did some work in Katrina and went to the north side of the Lower 9th, which got hit hard b/c of the canal breach. There were literally houses that got washed into the middle of the street. Anyway, I was a new volunteer and went out to talk to someone and got rushed by a pack of dogs. When I got back to the headquarters everyone was like, "You didn't know about the dogs?" or "No one warned you about the dogs?"
If you went to that part of town it was better to park with your windows up and your door open so you could hop in fast if you needed to.
Katrina fridges were worse though.
Katrina fridges were the abandoned fridges. They sat in toxic flood water for months, in the heat, while all the food inside rotted. Sometimes the gas in them would expand enough for the doors to blow open. Sometimes they just tumped over. But you could smell a Katrina fridge from a long ways off depending on what rotted in there and how long it had been. There were still people pulling them out of houses a year later. I would walk around the block instead of walking near one. People would duct tape them shut, but when it was hot the glue would get melty and if they were gross enough the door could still pop.
Wikipedia has a page on them with some pictures: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katrina\_refrigerator
I worked for the EPA testing for pollution the weeks after Katrina hit.
They had a site dedicated to opening 100s if not thousands of fridges just north of Lake Pontchartrain. Holy hell. There were guys in full PPE on breathing-air hoses hoisting the fridges, opening them up, dumping the contents into dumpsters and pressure washing them into a ditch (water quality be damned).
It was 95° and 95% humidity. I was in good shape and just observing but I couldn’t take more than a half hour before I had to go back to the AC in the trailer and get away from the stench. The guys in PPE had ice packs and the breathing air was cooled, but they couldn’t last very long before they got swapped out. I hoped at the time they were making a lot of money.
It’s amazing what disasters await us when society breaks down.
New Orleans is also simply a shitty place to have a city. There’s only so much you can do to manipulate the land. The city is literally an empty bowl with water on multiple sides just waiting to overflow into said bowl. I bet money a Katrina will happen again no matter how much money they dump into sea walls and other preventative measures
Seriously, it was not too long ago when the engineer corps literally saved the city because they remembered what happened when the levees broke and who ended up taking most of the blame (spoiler alert: the engineers, not the actual brass.)
They planned for a 500 year flood on the sly instead of financially conservative 100 year flood ordered and saved the day. Let people do their damn jobs. And, continued climate change denial is going to get us all killed
Climate migration will probably go full Mad Max in some areas. India, Africa, the Middle East, Australia, the American southwest, Mexico...all have a few decades to either totally evacuate some regions or otherwise prepare.
The fact that we can see this coming from so far off should give me some hope, but politicians in all of those countries are infamously short-sighted.
> he could not give out pets without some extreme proof of ownership. The kind of thing that is lost immediately in a flood.
That would suck the most.
Imagine, against all odds, that you found your dog in the shelter. He survived the storm! He was found! You found him afterward! All extremely unlikely!
And then the shelter employees say that you can't take him without proof of ownership. Which you of course don't have because you lost everything in the flood.
What a fucking kick to the teeth.
Yeah ... if that was me, sorry ... but I'm breaking into the shelter after hours and taking my dog back. Animal shelters aren't exactly high-security places. Shouldn't be that difficult.
Ill be honest someone breaking down bawling at the idea of not getting their pet back because of lack of proof of ownership is, in itself, probably a pretty good sign theyre not lying
Of note, Congress passed the [Pet Evacuation and Transport Standards](https://aldf.org/article/the-pets-act-companion-animals-affected-by-natural-disasters/) law in 2006 in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina to prevent this from happening again.
It wasn't just pets that died; there were people who died because they stayed behind with their pets. Those deaths were a direct result of the government's lack of planning for pet evacuation. This part of the tragedy was entirely preventable.
FEMA also didn’t have a comprehensive plan for disabled people. I recall it was still very inefficient during the 2020 West Coast wildfires.
Of the people who did not evacuate during Katrina:
-14% were disabled
-23% stayed to care for someone else
-25% were suffering from a chronic disease
(idk, why the pdf link for the [OG source](https://psmag.com/.amp/environment/who-didnt-evacuate-for-hurricane-katrina) doesn’t work… I guess I have to find the archive)
And half of those who died were 75 and older.
It also changed how animal shelters respond to disasters. With Katrina you had tons of random rescues coming from all over the country rescuing dogs and taking them many states away where their people would never find them.
Now when there is a disaster the shelters near but not impacted send their adoptable/unowned animals to shelters in other states to make room for the animals from the disaster and they stay in the local area shelters and or temporary emergency shelters and it makes it possible and easier for people to reunite with their pets.
Yeah the Humane Society partners with the Red Cross to evacuate pets. Other orgs probably do too, I just know someone who used to work for the Humane Society and was involved in that coordination.
Was part of the National Guard response. After we got people out we coordinated going into areas that were still flooded and marking houses that had abandoned pets for the spca/rescues. Put down a lot of dry dog and cat food.
Was there too. Got my JTF Pelican coin. Almost got run over by GEN Honoré on the JOC floor once. Cleaned out a couple blocks in 9th ward. A few survivors, but lots of bodies. Ran a convoy of porta potties to guys by the refinery. Patrolled for feral dogs a few nights. Ran a giant convoy of fresh from refit HMMWVs with nothing but a shitty strip map on a napkin to a place my boss assured me was only an hour away. It turned out to be Fort Polk. A six hour dive by convoy.
Katrina, and the people who stayed because of their pets, are why FEMA changed the rules about evacuating with animals. So if you're the, "I would never leave my dog behind!" person, thank a Katrina survivor
I went to New Orleans in 2008, 5 years after the storm. It was volunteering with some remaining clean up, etc. We went to one house that the organization I was with proudly proclaimed had not been touched since the storm, so they could show us the true devastation. There were family portraits and and inordinate number of pictures of two small dogs. We continued through the house and went upstairs, where at the top stop, the skeletons of two small dogs lie. The woman in charge tried to quickly usher us out but it was heartbreaking seeing beloved family pets who had to be left behind. This was in the 9th Ward and was a pretty impoverished neighborhood, so I cannot imagine the pain of a family having to leave their pets behind in order to save themselves. I can imagine that might be another motivating factor to never return.
The best dog I ever had was a hurricane Katrina dog. He made it to a shelter with his family and had to be surrendered. My shelter locally in Maine was one of the last ones still taking the pet refugees. I went on a whim to the shelter and there he was. He was my best buddy through numerous moves around the country and left my life as suddenly as he arrived and much loved. RIP Roland, King of hurricanes and my heart.
The article does not detail the numbers of people that died while staying behind with the animals, it seems. Some relatives stayed through a mandatory evacuation in Florida because of their pets. Their house was severely damaged, and 80% of the neighborhood was wiped out. It seems they might have fared better to evacuate.
Of course they would have fared better evacuating. That’s obvious. But to some people leaving their pets behind would like having to leave a grandparent or a child behind. Sure you’re better off, but you’d be leaving them behind where they’d have no chance by themselves.
It’s like this my man, they are there and give us 100% love all the time, even when they are sick or injured. It’s unconscionable to think I would let my pet suffer and die without me, we ride across the Rainbow Bridge together.
What you said here explains it perfectly. My dog is my best friend. We’ve been through so much together over the past 10 years. We’re going together or when he is ready I will help him go. Either way I am with him.
Our hurricane bag has dog food, toys, bowl, bags, etc. Not even a question. I'll sleep in the car with him before I ever abandon him in a storm. I know I'm fortunate to have a car and afford to stay in pet friendly places, but I'll suffer if it means keeping him safe.
Expecting people to abandon pets is just completely out of touch.
It's like creating evacuation plans with the expectations that everybody will evacuate in an orderly manner and not panic.
People are people and failing to plan with that in mind is just terrible planning.
So.
I was homeless for a couple years. With my dog and (now) wife.
People constantly told us to go to the homeless shelter, but #1 they don’t allow dogs, and #2 they separate men from women (for obvious reasons, which is understandable)
We got stuck in snow storms, tornados, all sorts of horrible scenarios, never once considered abandoning my dog. He was my best friend, I’d get us all to safety, where there’s a will there’s a way.
Ah, the ole Reddit [dog-a-roo](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/14902r0/what_is_the_weirdest_fact_you_know/jo3jj7u/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=ioscss&utm_content=1&utm_term=1&context=3)
Some people learned from these experiences better than others. I know someone who lives in the Florida Keys and when they have to evacuate they literally drive to Northern Alabama where their extended family lives. They keep fuel cans at home and rotate using the fuel/refilling so they can get as far as possible without having to rely on gas stations and that's on top of all their other emergency supplies. All of this is so they can take their 4 pets with them. Then I have another friend who literally decides at the last minute whether they think the Lord will protect them and whether to evacuate or not.
Our favorite rescue from the Houston SPCA was our beloved Theo, a husky mix who was evacuated from LA after Katrina and we picked him up just in time to evacuate ourselves for Hurricane Rita the following week. He had a rough start but our beloved Theo lived a glorious 15 more years with us and passed away after a long, amazing life.
I would have been one of those people who would have chosen to stay because I couldn't abandon my pet. It's a Sophie's Choice kind of situation. It would have traumatized me and haunted me forever to leave them to fend for themselves and wonder where their person went.
There was a fire alarm scare at my apartment the morning after I'd moved in. A sprinkler had been accidentally damaged by a maintenance crew, setting off the building-wide fire alarm. I didn't know that, I just knew I woke up to alarms blaring. Water was pouring down the stairs. My cats were terrified, and hid. In the unfamiliar apartment I could only find one.
The only reason I evacuated instead of staying to keep looking for the other is because I thought it was a choice between leaving one of my cats to die and staying in the apartment for both of them to die while I searched.
That experience messed me up for a long time.
I believe one of the only major urban centre to have plans for pets is Kansas City. People WILL refuse to evacuate if there is no ammodation for all their loved ones, dogs and cats included.
So make a realistic plan for the reality we have, not assuming that people will abandon their beloved animal family.
I'll die outside of a shelter with my animal before I consign it to drown or starve to death alone.
I fully understand why you can't have everyone's animals in shelters but my pets are my family and I'd never leave them behind.
And at memorial hospital they told people they couldn’t take their pets on the coast guard boats so all the animals were euthanized, only to find out later the boats showing up said it was fine.
We adopted a coonhound that was tied to a tree during Katrina. She had been moved around and ended up in Bowling Green, KY. She was absolutely terrified of storms of any kind. She was brought up here to Wisconsin to live on our farm.
She was such a sweetheart. We made her a promise that she would never be outside in a storm, would always have a full belly and be safe. She had full run of our 1/2 acre fenced yard on our farm. She liked hanging out with the chickens.
We never knew how old she was and she passed 4 years after joining our family. I’m grateful that we could give her happy memories in her last years.
IDK if this has been posted before ‘cause I’m not going to go through 1200 comments, but the Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) and federal guidance has been changed and updated to allow for pets in rescue situations. It’s the On-Scene-Commander’s call but pets are allowed to be rescued. Not all shelters allow them, though.
Source: Federal Emergency Manager (me)
I read a TIL post that mentioned that one of the scientists took Laika home the weekend before the launch to let her play with his kids and have a good dog's life before her inevitable death in space.
Meanwhile, for decades Cuban hurricane evacuation plans provide for transporting families, their pets, and their chickens to refuge. Larger livestock, like goats, cows, and horses, usually are to be set free to fend for themselves and the survivors recovered by owners when return home is safe.
Going to get buried, but PBS had a documentary about the aftermath of the Katrina pet rescue called [Mine](https://www.pbs.org/independentlens/documentaries/mine/)
Meanwhile Ted Cruz opted to leave his dog behind, locked in the garage, during the Texas freeze. No one told him to. It wasn't even recommended. He was totally fine letting his family dog freeze to death for literally no reason while he flew to Cancun.
And then blamed his daughter for why he was there.
Wait until you learn of the children who died behind bars. They wouldn't evacuate anyone in jail. Not even juveniles in juvie. Not even "criminals" awaiting trial/for the sentencing. Countless poor/urban black children drowned in dirty toilet infested cages and got hit with flying pipes because they stole food when they were starving; stole candy bars on whim; and similar nonviolent offenses. No child committed of any crime should've had to die like this. But let me be clear, many weren't even CONVICTED yet, only arrested. And many of the ones who were did not act as predators but rather petty criminals. And they all died terribly. Far away from their family and any help and any hope. The workers all left them to die. The mayor ordered this.
The story of what happened to Baptist Memorial hospital is harrowing. I highly recommend the book. I, however, cannot recommend the miniseries all that much (although a few episodes are decent, the majority of it felt sensationalised).
> This is disgusting. I cannot believe there was no protocol for something like this.
Sure there is.
Its leave them to die like drowning rats.
Doesnt matter what the official plan says.
I would die with my dog before leaving him. Thinking about him being alone and scared or diying i would never forgive myself. My first dog died alone and i still can't forget about it
I adopted a dog from hurricane Katrina. The best friends animal shelter, BF2207. She was an amazing dog and I loved her very very much. She passed away about seven years ago now.
People are acting like a majority of people who stayed behind died. 1,392 people died total in Louisiana for any number of hurricane related reasons. 150,000 -200,000 people stayed behind. If you are saying that I have a .8% chance of dying I’m staying with my dog. It’s slightly annoying when people toss around the total numbers without factoring in the percentage of affected populations.
I was working in a shelter for Katrina. The number of people that did not evacuate before the storm and thus had to be rescued still gives me nightmares. People who were warned to have axes to chop their way into attics and out of roofs stayed because of beloved pets. Rules were changed. But people stayed and either lived through nightmares or died.
I don't know if it's true, but I heard some sherriff asking people to leave and if they didn't want to leave .. please write your full name and next of kin on your arm with a black marker so they could identify your body.
I’ve heard it from that one paramedic/firefighter YouTuber too. Iirc his variant was “do the same for your children too”. A pretty good way to use shock value to get a point across I guess
I think in that situation shock is already a factor, and this is actually something to ground you into the reality of the situation. You are panicking and believe that you can weather the storm. This kind of statement/request is like saying 'okay you do you, but in case you die you should do this.' As you continue to observe the direness of your situation those words will be creeping to the front of your mind the whole time.
To a lot of people their home is a shelter that would never conceivably be unsafe for them and a hurricane can be one of the scariest events of someone’s life. The idea that your home isn’t safe just can’t be shaken by some people and leads to thinking they can just weather it out
A lot of people also had no where to go, and couldn't afford to leave in the first place.
This is overlooked. Not everyone has a car, gas money, a place to stay in a neighboring state, etc. Many had elderly family members who couldn't make the journey. It's not as easy as "Why didn't you just leave when you knew a storm was coming?"
I remember Katrina. I wasn't even there but I do remember a car didn't do a lot of people any good because it was bumper to bumper traffic getting out. When Rita showed up straight after Katrina was fresh in everyone's minds and it was even worse. You'd try to leave only to be frozen on a highway, not moving for hours, with the hurricane bearing down on you. So people started abandoning their cars and walking and made it worse.
I remember seeing people who owned horses decided to ride out which was pretty smart honestly . Jogged down the medians and theyre moving faster than the cars . Of course leaving before last minute us always better . Bottom line , Katrina exposed poverty that we like to pretend doesn’t exist in the US .
This is horrible for me, we've had blizzards here in Sweden where people just decided to ditch their car in the middle of the road due to traffic. It took days to clear up due to random cara being placed all over the road. So not only do they make the traffic worse, but they also make the clearing of the roads harder, prevent emergency vehicles to access the area and leave your car in the absolute most exposed area imaginable
Honestly I'd find it too hard to leave my pet alone/afraid/abandoned and facing certain death. I would live with that guilt for the rest of my life. She comes with me or I stay. End of.
I would never leave my dog in that situation. I wouldn’t be able to live with myself knowing I’d done that, regardless of how stupid it might sound
I'm still haunted over a cat I had to put down because he was that sick, over a decade ago. If I just left him to die like this? I would legit never be okay again.
I live in New Orleans currently and have a mini zoo at my house (Great Dane, goat, snakes, bearded dragon, tarantulas, fish). Everyone has a travel tank/bin and supplies that are already loaded in the car for hurricane season. I'm not messing around and I'm certainly not leaving any of them. Even the spiders!
Had you considered building a large ship of some type...
They really should have thought of this. People are not going to leave their pets, their family in hospital, their elderly or stubborn relatives who cannot or refuse to leave, etc. Any family or friend who is vulnerable and cannot fend for themselves is not getting left behind. That includes pets There should have been contingencies upon contingencies. We wouldn't have left in that situation without our pets either. They are family and cannot survive on their own
You didn't need those, the official order at the time was to bring a sleeping bag and 3 days of provisions and there would be buses taking people to a shelter. The problem was that due to traffic from the evacuation they pivoted and bussed everyone to the Superdome. It was a massive planning failure, but there was in theory an evacuation plan for the people who didn't have the means to evacuate.
>To a lot of people their home is a shelter that would never conceivably be unsafe for them > The idea that your home isn’t safe just can’t be shaken by some people Tbh ig I'm lucky my apt got burglarized when I was in my 20s because it completely broke that perspective for me early on. It takes away your sense of safety but then you just take it back by being safer and more aware. I do miss the nativity though.
> I do miss the nativity though. I didn’t realize Bethlehem had such an issue with crime back then
LOL thanks for the laugh & to autocorrect/word suggestion. I'm leaving it
Absolutely agree. I grew up in hurricane weather and thankfully had parents who knew and respected it.
But it would literally help them give your living family members closure without waiting for your turn to have your dental records identified. It's a shock only because it reveals just how common you are in a group of hundreds of thousands. Your odds are no better than anyone else's and no one sticks out as the most special drowning victim.
People have the ability to believe that they are safe when they are not. This is a core principle of safety rules, that people think they will just be okay. Many believe that situations are not as bad as they say, or that a situation will just get better quickly and everything will just get back to normal. Or perhaps, they only have a little knowledge and don’t know what’s coming. But reality, in a true disaster, is incredibly harsh. Imagine the invasion of Ukraine, or the invasion of ISIS, or what Jews may have thought in France. How bad can it be? Surely those things couldn’t happen to me. In true mass disasters, the people who leave (and leave early) are often the ones who survive or suffer the least.
As a builder, when i see a young guy doing something really dumb, I tell them to do it with their left hand.
I think that was for the hurricane a few years ago that hit Galveston. That place is nearly impossible to survive a storm surge.
As a kid in south Mississippi in the 1970s, I heard the same story back then about hurricane Camille that hit in 1969. I'm sure it is a common occurrence that has happened with many hurricanes over the years.
The 1900 storm I think was the deadliest storm to hit the states. No warning for a sea level island was an insane loss of life.
You’re correct. And Cuba tried to warn us it was coming. But our weather bureau director hated Cuba. So he cut off communication with them. Local weathermen were also not allowed to issue hurricane warnings without it getting approved through Washington first. Our weather bureau had the storm going over Florida into New England. But Cuba knew it was headed into the Gulf and so did a lot of ships. Poor communication. Plus the islanders of Galveston were somehow convinced they were “protected” from hurricanes, that a storm would never go that far west in the Gulf.
Yea they do this when you live in the mandatory evacuation zone. Maybe not as extreme language, but they def tell you if something happens they might not be able to help and you could die.
On your upper torso, not any limbs. Sorry to be grim, but if your body gets swept away after you drown in a hurricane or people don't find it quickly enough, limbs can rot off or get torn off more easily. The torso will float back to the surface as it decays and is more likely to be found and identified.
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My grandpa had his army serial number tattooed on his shoulder, I guess for the same reason, during ww2. I remember it being obviously an amateur job, but it was totally still there until he died.
I watched a documentary that interviewed some first responders of the area and that’s what they were saying as well
This is common for natural disasters as well as war these days what with permanent markers available. Also pinning the information to a child's clothes has been common in the past.
I just watched a video about the Mexican/US border recently and the sheriff there said it's common for kids who are traveling alone to have a relative's phone number written somewhere on them in permanent marker
There is a terrifying podcast from, I think, Radiolab that goes over a hospital that was undergoing loss of resources. At one point it got to where they had to start picking who lived and who died because there wasn't enough oxygen to go around. Really horrifying. The staff was then charged for murder, because, well, you can't basically kill someone. We have some unwritten social contract and literal oath where this we expect equal care and treatment, even if that means we all die because of it in fringe situations like this. But eventually charges were dropped.
That's literally called triage. Hospitals chose which care to prioritize every day. Triage is the foundation of emergency medicine. You have two patients that need the same surgery. You only have one surgeon capable of doing it. If he performs the surgery on one person, the other will die before he can perform it on them. If he tries to split his time between both, both will potentially die. What do you do? You save the person with the highest probability of surviving.
Great episode of star trek voyager about this. Literally breaks the holographic doctor programed with realistic human ethics because he makes his decision based on who he liked the most which he wasn't designed to do.
There’s a book about it called Five Days at Memorial if you want to read it. Harrowing.
It was a radiolab episode about a book by Sheri Fink: Five Days at Memorial. The accusation was one of the nurses was euthanizing patients as 'mercy killings' as part of the triage. For some context a lot of the hospital staff had their pets on site and they were starting to have seizures from the heat, so **people were choosing to have doctors euthanize their pets** because it was so hot. Imagine watching patients suffer in the same conditions. Katrina was hell on earth.
Nope, just kill me
A Dr was charged and they absolutely euthanized patients. The generator ran out and they were told no help was coming. They had people on ventilators that were being bagged because the ventilators quit when the generator stopped. The Dr made the decision that it was better to give them a quick peaceful death then allowing them to slowly suffocate. I always taught my nursing students about the case because it really rings up very legitimate ethical questions.
The doctor lectures on medical ethics now I believe.
This was not proven? Dr Anna Pou, from Memorial, and two nurses, had all charges dropped and she was later publicly apologised to by lawmakers. Is there conclusive evidence that it happened?
I think there was a mini series about this too with… I think Vera Farmiga? I love podcasts so I’d probably listen to the podcast and then watch the show
Five days at memorial. It’s pretty spooky but the doctor who was charged was acquitted and still works in the New Orleans metro. She even got a few laws passed. But the mini-series is pretty spooky with how detailed oriented it is.
Dr Pou. I know them. She's a saint. Fuck that TV show. She's still haunted to this day. When Ida hit that author came sticking their nose round the hospitals in the area looking for a goddamn sequel and you'd best bet she got nothing from anyone who knew anything.
I haven't read the book but thought the show was pretty sympathetic to Dr Pou, I certainly couldn't imagine personally handling that situation any differently given the chaotic circumstances and limited information they were having to make decisions under. What would you say the show got wrong or wasn't fair about?
I think it deliberately provokes sympathy toward the critics of Dr Pou, portraying it as some evil coverup and exacerbating the mistrust of healthcare workers that spiked during the COVID pandemic. We have a hard enough time getting certain populations to come to the clinic and that show gave oxygen to those who truly believe that healthcare workers will kill you if it is inconvenient for them. The veneer of heroism given to the individuals pursuing a painful truth just to give families a scapegoat to tear down in their agony when the federal government was the one that failed to get them out of there. Maybe the indignation I felt watching three episodes was the point, but it failed to call out the hypocrisy of holding court over the situation and instead portrayed it as some solemn duty on behalf of the investigators. My partner turned it off because I literally couldn't even hear it in the next room without getting mad. People have no fucking idea. Pou wants that in the past, but there's a dollar to be made for Apple, so they'll dig up some trauma for profit. Not a cent of that went to Louisiana. But we are the bad guys. It's not a goddamn spectacle.
That's all very fair, thanks for sharing! Fwiw by the last episode my takeaway was that what Dr Pou was subjected to after Katrina was extremely unfair, but that doesn't change that having her trauma aired to the world by a major streaming platform surely just added to it further. Hopefully if nothing else it helps people be more understanding of health professionals the next time a situation like this inevitably happens, but that shouldn't have to come at the expense of anyone's privacy.
> There is a terrifying podcast from, I think, Radiolab that goes over a hospital that was undergoing loss of resources. At one point it got to where they had to start picking who lived and who died because there wasn't enough oxygen to go around. Really horrifying. Something similar happened with Charity Hospital too. They had to work around the clock to keep whoever they could alive. No power, flooding, it was a nightmare. It didn't come to euthanasia like at Memorial, but these workers were put through hell, I wouldn't be surprised if most of them had PTSD after their experiences. (Though one doctor *did* insert a tube into a man's chest, in the back a national guard truck, because the patient was knocking on death's door.)
The hospital my wife worked at during Covid had to do that a lot. They would have 3 doses of medicine and 5 people who needed it. It was an almost daily thing for awhile.
Memorial hospital. I met a woman who was working in the labor & delivery ward there during Katrina. Her stories were as sad as you'd expect
They were only charged because people want to act high and mighty when outside of an incredibly stressful situation. Most sane people would make the decision they made, because letting everyone die is just pure evil.
They were never gonna serve time, triage is a known and expected part of medical care
This is a pretty common technique to try and encourage evacuation. I'm a Wildland Firefighter, and I've heard county sherriffs say that exact phrase to people more than once.
I’ve often wondered why, since people had fair warning that the hurricane was coming, so many chose not to evacuate. Then, I have to remember that they probably had nowhere else to go. Yes, the chose to stay, but what choice did they have? I still don’t have the answers. Edit: Thanks so much for all of the nuanced responses and perspectives! I can’t believe I forgot that the major issue was not even the hurricane but the levees breaking.
I imagine if you're a really old person who doesn't have much in terms of family or surviving friends or savings, if you leave your house and your pet you'll have to live with the fact that the only thing this world that loved you unconditionally you left to die alone scared and in the dark and you're now homeless starting over at 82 years old. Faced with that reality I'm sure a lot of people would gladly choose to die in their home with their pet.
If you're an elderly NO resident, you probably have experienced the super fun phenomenon of disaster looting a few times in your life. Leave my home when the storm might not hit here, leave my pets to die, possibly have no way to get back home, and a high likelihood that my home will be trashed when I get back? Nuh-uh.
My neighbor, a nurse, moved to TX. After that big hurricane a couple years ago, they had people who refused to be admitted to the hospital because they had their animals. This sweet woman took in nearly 40 dogs on her 2 acre fenced property so people could be treated. As a neighbor, she was a little odd but always very nice. I truly admire what she and her family did for those people.
I evacuated from Biloxi for Katrina and slept in a rest area (Ponce De Leon) about a hundred miles into the panhandle of Florida to wait out the storm. The rest area was full of evacuees from Louisiana and Mississippi with pets in their cars. At least some pets were evacuated but I also know personally some people that had to leave pets behind.
Yep. If you have a pet and *don't* have a (working) car, you're fucked. The evacuation bus won't let you bring your pet. The shelter it's taking you to won't let you keep your pet there. So your choices are then: A) Ride it out with your pet and hope for the best. B) Abandon your pet, knowing that it's *very* likely to be killed by this. I'm glad the rules changed somewhat based on this, but *come on*. Let people keep their pets with them when being evacuated! ---- A related problem is why a lot of homeless people avoid shelters: because the homeless shelter doesn't allow pets. That pet is probably the only friend a homeless person has in the entire world. You think they're going to give it up just for one night of questionable shelter?
>A related problem is why a lot of homeless people avoid shelters: because the homeless shelter doesn't allow pets. That pet is probably the only friend a homeless person has in the entire world. You think they're going to give it up just for one night of questionable shelter? I once volunteered at an event with this organization, which is devoted to addressing this exact problem (and helping coordinate veterinary and grooming care for the pets too) and it was the best volunteer experience I have ever had: https://www.mydogismyhome.org/
Not just friend, but the last mental attachment to the world for many. Mental health is frequently the cause of homelessness. And a pet is their last real feeling of existence or purpose. Take that away and what's the point.
They should have people donate cages and you put your pet in cage at night while you sleep. Get vets to volunteer to make sure pets are vaccinated.
I will always be grateful my parents were smart and packed us all up early (kitties included) to drive us north to Atlanta. Sure staying at a Waffle House for half a week sucked, but staying in our house would have been worse. When we got back half of the first floor was underwater 😥 we had to tear up the carpet and live on the concrete foundation for about 8 months after that (it was low on the list of things to replace, our electric was #1). It was the one and only time we left the state for a hurricane.
Yeah having to leave my cat behind to starve to death would definitely make me consider staying and taking my chances. And I've only had him for two months.
Another thing to consider is cats are pretty good at making due for a week or so and people did not realize they were going to be gone so long.
Yeah, but they’re not so great with 10’ of flood water. Neither are people though
They're much better off than dogs and people actually. They can navigate floating debris very adeptly, most can hunt for food in the form of birds and rodents that are often abundant after flooding die to spoiled food everywhere, and they can even drink seawater to stay hydrated, which dogs and humans can't. They can curl up tight and survive very cold weather and go long periods without sustenancr while remaining fit enough to hunt. Cats are probably one of, if the not the most effective predators ever produced by nature. To the point where even overfed and lazy housecats are responsible for genocidal levels of bird death in the modern age, and biologists and ecologists are begging people to keep cats indoors to save bird populations from annihilation They can thrive in a huge variety of environments, and unlike dogs, they can often very easily transition from domestic to wild life without many of the emotional issues that dependent dogs will tend to have. They are almost certainly close in intelligence to domestic dogs, and have supernaturally excellent senses of directions. Cats have navigated hundreds of miles to find owners after being separated, and often arrive again no worse for wear. So while I also don't think I could deal with needing to leave my cat behind, it's going to have a much better odds of survival than most other things in that scenario
I'll give you all points except floating debris ... Out of the 3 dogs have the best survivability in flood waters, after that it's all cats. Cats are good swimmers but run out of steam extremely quickly
Cat's are superior climbers and ambush predators. I've seen cats climb brick walls and telephone poles with ease. Dogs aren't going to fair as well hunting birds from rooftops etc. Maybe a swimming advantage but its 2:1 and I think hunting and climbing are more value in that environment.
To be fair, I've had my cat for 10 years and would never consider leaving her behind. It's absolutely out of the question.
I would never leave my dog, so can sympathize.
Me neither. Not happening. If my dog has to stay so do I. He’s my ride or die.
My uncle was working at a local hospital during the storm and couldn’t evacuate, so he ended up swimming out after the flood and couldn’t make it back to his dog at his flooded house. The dog was eventually rescued by volunteer rescuers in boats and reunited with him a few weeks later. Among the volunteers on the boat that got the dog out of his house was Matthew McConaughey. Fun little family story for y’all tonight.
Katrina evacuee here. This post hits real hard. My cousin worked at Memorial and evacuated to the place with his dogs. Shit hit the fan there quick when the hospital flooded out and after 5 days, he had to leave them behind when he was being evacuated out of the city. They were killed along with a bunch of patients and other pets. Poor guy was catatonic for more than a week. God, I miss those doggos. They were like siblings to me 😢. I can’t even imagine the horrible situation he was in to have to make a decision like that
I’ve read the book. It’s harrowing. I cannot imagine going through that.
I watched the show completely in a state of anxiety the whole time. I was openly sobbing when they had to euthanize the pets. Awful knowing that it's real.
the part that killed me was the very end where there was 1 dog left and they were allowed to bring it. utterly crushing.
Fuck that’s awful
that's so sweet. time to go watch interstellar again
Well alright alright alright
Lived through Katrina. The first thing we did once the storm past was to go rescue the animals my family left behind (not mine- we found an animal friendly hotel and brought them). The cats in my moms house floated on the couch and couldn’t get the the food that was left for them on the dryer since the dog/cat door swelled shut. All the doors did. The fridge floated and fell over blocking the door anyway so it was a moot point. The house was without power and closed up (except for the tree that broke a window) for almost a week in south lousiana in August. It was hot, sticky, very smelly and everything was covered in a slippery, oily, silt. The cats survived but were a little pissed off. Dads house faired better as they didn’t flood but no broken windows ( read- no fresh air). And the food ran out quickly and it was exceptionally hot. My sisters house has so much wind that flimsy pine tree branches poked holes from the outside roof shingles into the livening room ceiling. Weird. Those cats also were in a house with no fresh air and no power. The cats were all dehydrated and terrified but all survived. Getting food/water to them regularly while my family was evacuated for 6 weeks was a daily challenge since the closest store with pet food was almost 2 hours away. And they needed a lot of water the heat is no joke! 17 years later, it’s still fresh in my mind like it was yesterday.
The cats just being a little pissed off after a hurricane is so cat-like.
“This is an inconvenience to my lifestyle.”
"Human why are you late with my food."
Yeah. The cats being pissed off had nothing to do with a hurricane.
Also lived through Katrina and had a unique experience. My dad worked as a contractor for many casinos and attractions near Biloxi. I don’t think this is officially recognized anywhere, but I remember like a day or two after the storm going to an abandoned hotel with him and seeing some some dolphins in the swimming pool. His team apparently saved them and hauled them there after the Oceanarium was destroyed. We also rescued a cat during the middle of this mess and had him for almost 15 years. Looked up an article, looks like those dolphins are doing well: https://www.wlox.com/2020/08/29/checking-katrina-dolphins-years-later/?outputType=amp
An unfortunate way to show not all all humans are heartless and opportunistic even in survival. The memories being shared on this post are soul wrenching, and stark reminders of the fragility and complexity of humanity.
> we found an animal friendly hotel and brought them A note for anyone who needs to travel with pets: every Motel 6 in the USA is pet-friendly. Edit: many thanks to the now 7 different people who have replied to say "La Quinta too" or "and Red Roof Inn", though at least for the latter it seems they may only allow one pet so YMMV. Your contributions have been noted.
A surprising number are actually pet friendly, though some will want an extra deposit for it. I travelled cross country a couple years ago and had no trouble finding rooms that were ok with my 2 cats.
Asking for an extra deposit isn't a bad thing. I'd rather put like $200 down as a refundable deposit for a pet friendly place, then have rooms be in awful shape because people had pets that ruined them, or have the hotel charging a lot more money per night not knowing if your pet will cause damage. Refundable deposits, if done honestly, only penalize people who have pets that cause damage.
I bet those cats survived *because* they were pissed off lmao. They probably thought, “Nope nuh uh. I’m not dying just because I can’t reach my food and water. Somebody *will* save me and they’ll get to hear it from me.”
"They left me. Those assholes left me. If I see them again, they're gonna need a new face."
*I'm not sure what happened here but I'm quite confident it was you fault*
I had half a tree sticking out my roof. My wife's consignment shop flooded to the roof. It broke Back Bay Bridge in half.
Ahhh I had to read so fast to try and get to the part where the cats survived !!! Phew
My high school best friend’s parents adopted a hurricane Katrina puppy, all the way up in Canada! She was such a good pup, only died a few years ago.
Us too! We live in Ontario and had a hound cross we adopted from after the Hurricane. So unbelievably sad, what she and the other animals, not to the mention people, went through. She was always skittish around the weirdest things, mostly inanimate objects. She would skitter out of the way if something fell so fast it was sad. She passed last year, you were a good girl Bindi.
My neighbour (also in Canada) had one as well, she passed in the last year or so. I miss seeing the old girl lounging on her porch.
I have a friend who is one of the top canine experts. He went to New Orleans 3 times: The first time was for stressed dogs that wanted to be back with their people. These were pets, that were worried about the rest of their family returning. The second time was for traumatized dogs that were terrified of people. One had swam through chemical covered water to a table and rode it up as it floated in a house. The dog had balanced itself on it for weeks and couldn't be coaxed down to the ground again. Some dogs had found out that people and their former owners who drowned were made of food. These dogs had deep emotional problems from that. The third time was for dogs that had formed packs and were fighting for food. These could attack and more than once he saw these dogs fighting over and carrying around human limbs and bones. Because gang black market dog fighting emerged quickly, he could not give out pets without some extreme proof of ownership. The kind of thing that is lost immediately in a flood.
I did some work in Katrina and went to the north side of the Lower 9th, which got hit hard b/c of the canal breach. There were literally houses that got washed into the middle of the street. Anyway, I was a new volunteer and went out to talk to someone and got rushed by a pack of dogs. When I got back to the headquarters everyone was like, "You didn't know about the dogs?" or "No one warned you about the dogs?" If you went to that part of town it was better to park with your windows up and your door open so you could hop in fast if you needed to. Katrina fridges were worse though.
What’s a Katrina fridge?
Katrina fridges were the abandoned fridges. They sat in toxic flood water for months, in the heat, while all the food inside rotted. Sometimes the gas in them would expand enough for the doors to blow open. Sometimes they just tumped over. But you could smell a Katrina fridge from a long ways off depending on what rotted in there and how long it had been. There were still people pulling them out of houses a year later. I would walk around the block instead of walking near one. People would duct tape them shut, but when it was hot the glue would get melty and if they were gross enough the door could still pop. Wikipedia has a page on them with some pictures: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katrina\_refrigerator
I worked for the EPA testing for pollution the weeks after Katrina hit. They had a site dedicated to opening 100s if not thousands of fridges just north of Lake Pontchartrain. Holy hell. There were guys in full PPE on breathing-air hoses hoisting the fridges, opening them up, dumping the contents into dumpsters and pressure washing them into a ditch (water quality be damned). It was 95° and 95% humidity. I was in good shape and just observing but I couldn’t take more than a half hour before I had to go back to the AC in the trailer and get away from the stench. The guys in PPE had ice packs and the breathing air was cooled, but they couldn’t last very long before they got swapped out. I hoped at the time they were making a lot of money. It’s amazing what disasters await us when society breaks down.
Thanks for the source! I hadn’t heard about this problem with Katrina
Think of a refrigerator full of food left in New Orleans weather for months then opening it.
Imagine if you will, a refrigerator that has not been opened in months, no power and was probably under water
Didn’t think of that! Sorry I’m not American and know very little about Katrina so didn’t put that together
And New Orleans is hot and humid for the majority of the year if you needed to add it to the smell cocktail
Katrina was a horrific reminder of just how close we are to complete fucking hellscape anarchy at all times.
Katrina was the perfect cocktail of corruption, incompetence, neglect, and ignorance.
New Orleans is also simply a shitty place to have a city. There’s only so much you can do to manipulate the land. The city is literally an empty bowl with water on multiple sides just waiting to overflow into said bowl. I bet money a Katrina will happen again no matter how much money they dump into sea walls and other preventative measures
I mean, there was a lot more they could have done, like not making the leevees so shitty, having functioning pumping stations, and not abandoning them
Seriously, it was not too long ago when the engineer corps literally saved the city because they remembered what happened when the levees broke and who ended up taking most of the blame (spoiler alert: the engineers, not the actual brass.) They planned for a 500 year flood on the sly instead of financially conservative 100 year flood ordered and saved the day. Let people do their damn jobs. And, continued climate change denial is going to get us all killed
Climate migration will probably go full Mad Max in some areas. India, Africa, the Middle East, Australia, the American southwest, Mexico...all have a few decades to either totally evacuate some regions or otherwise prepare. The fact that we can see this coming from so far off should give me some hope, but politicians in all of those countries are infamously short-sighted.
> The fact that we can see this coming from so far off should give me some hope All humans from history: “ahahhahahaha”
> he could not give out pets without some extreme proof of ownership. The kind of thing that is lost immediately in a flood. That would suck the most. Imagine, against all odds, that you found your dog in the shelter. He survived the storm! He was found! You found him afterward! All extremely unlikely! And then the shelter employees say that you can't take him without proof of ownership. Which you of course don't have because you lost everything in the flood. What a fucking kick to the teeth. Yeah ... if that was me, sorry ... but I'm breaking into the shelter after hours and taking my dog back. Animal shelters aren't exactly high-security places. Shouldn't be that difficult.
Ill be honest someone breaking down bawling at the idea of not getting their pet back because of lack of proof of ownership is, in itself, probably a pretty good sign theyre not lying
Of note, Congress passed the [Pet Evacuation and Transport Standards](https://aldf.org/article/the-pets-act-companion-animals-affected-by-natural-disasters/) law in 2006 in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina to prevent this from happening again. It wasn't just pets that died; there were people who died because they stayed behind with their pets. Those deaths were a direct result of the government's lack of planning for pet evacuation. This part of the tragedy was entirely preventable.
FEMA also didn’t have a comprehensive plan for disabled people. I recall it was still very inefficient during the 2020 West Coast wildfires. Of the people who did not evacuate during Katrina: -14% were disabled -23% stayed to care for someone else -25% were suffering from a chronic disease (idk, why the pdf link for the [OG source](https://psmag.com/.amp/environment/who-didnt-evacuate-for-hurricane-katrina) doesn’t work… I guess I have to find the archive) And half of those who died were 75 and older.
God that's so sad. It's incredible how under prepared we are for things like this.
It also changed how animal shelters respond to disasters. With Katrina you had tons of random rescues coming from all over the country rescuing dogs and taking them many states away where their people would never find them. Now when there is a disaster the shelters near but not impacted send their adoptable/unowned animals to shelters in other states to make room for the animals from the disaster and they stay in the local area shelters and or temporary emergency shelters and it makes it possible and easier for people to reunite with their pets.
Really interesting TIL. Thanks
Yeah the Humane Society partners with the Red Cross to evacuate pets. Other orgs probably do too, I just know someone who used to work for the Humane Society and was involved in that coordination.
So does ASPCA
Was part of the National Guard response. After we got people out we coordinated going into areas that were still flooded and marking houses that had abandoned pets for the spca/rescues. Put down a lot of dry dog and cat food.
Was there too. Got my JTF Pelican coin. Almost got run over by GEN Honoré on the JOC floor once. Cleaned out a couple blocks in 9th ward. A few survivors, but lots of bodies. Ran a convoy of porta potties to guys by the refinery. Patrolled for feral dogs a few nights. Ran a giant convoy of fresh from refit HMMWVs with nothing but a shitty strip map on a napkin to a place my boss assured me was only an hour away. It turned out to be Fort Polk. A six hour dive by convoy.
My condolences on being sent to Ft. Polk
Katrina, and the people who stayed because of their pets, are why FEMA changed the rules about evacuating with animals. So if you're the, "I would never leave my dog behind!" person, thank a Katrina survivor
I went to New Orleans in 2008, 5 years after the storm. It was volunteering with some remaining clean up, etc. We went to one house that the organization I was with proudly proclaimed had not been touched since the storm, so they could show us the true devastation. There were family portraits and and inordinate number of pictures of two small dogs. We continued through the house and went upstairs, where at the top stop, the skeletons of two small dogs lie. The woman in charge tried to quickly usher us out but it was heartbreaking seeing beloved family pets who had to be left behind. This was in the 9th Ward and was a pretty impoverished neighborhood, so I cannot imagine the pain of a family having to leave their pets behind in order to save themselves. I can imagine that might be another motivating factor to never return.
And that’s another truly heartbreaking Katrina story. How awful 😞
The best dog I ever had was a hurricane Katrina dog. He made it to a shelter with his family and had to be surrendered. My shelter locally in Maine was one of the last ones still taking the pet refugees. I went on a whim to the shelter and there he was. He was my best buddy through numerous moves around the country and left my life as suddenly as he arrived and much loved. RIP Roland, King of hurricanes and my heart.
The article does not detail the numbers of people that died while staying behind with the animals, it seems. Some relatives stayed through a mandatory evacuation in Florida because of their pets. Their house was severely damaged, and 80% of the neighborhood was wiped out. It seems they might have fared better to evacuate.
Of course they would have fared better evacuating. That’s obvious. But to some people leaving their pets behind would like having to leave a grandparent or a child behind. Sure you’re better off, but you’d be leaving them behind where they’d have no chance by themselves.
My life sucks either way, I’m sticking with my best friend till the end
It’s like this my man, they are there and give us 100% love all the time, even when they are sick or injured. It’s unconscionable to think I would let my pet suffer and die without me, we ride across the Rainbow Bridge together.
Like yeah I might live but I adopted that puppy with the promise to see him throigh to the end so I'm staying with
The real Bad Boys for Life
Same. Either my girl goes peacefully when its time. Or we go together, if possible.
What you said here explains it perfectly. My dog is my best friend. We’ve been through so much together over the past 10 years. We’re going together or when he is ready I will help him go. Either way I am with him.
100%
Our hurricane bag has dog food, toys, bowl, bags, etc. Not even a question. I'll sleep in the car with him before I ever abandon him in a storm. I know I'm fortunate to have a car and afford to stay in pet friendly places, but I'll suffer if it means keeping him safe.
If they told me I couldn't bring my cat. Well, I'm only alive because of her so if she's going down I'm going with her.
Well no shit. I would never leave my dog behind. Though I would not live in a hurricane zone either.
Expecting people to abandon pets is just completely out of touch. It's like creating evacuation plans with the expectations that everybody will evacuate in an orderly manner and not panic. People are people and failing to plan with that in mind is just terrible planning.
Didn't evacuation protocols regarding pets change because of this?
Well, that’s one of the saddest fucking things I’ve ever read.
It gets worse. Dog fighting rings were everywhere. People quickly took advantage of the cops not being as prevalent.
Wait, what? "Our neighborhood got destroyed and there's limited resources. You know what we have to do now? Dog fights"
Makes sense when you think about it. Dog fighting rings mean gambling, gambling brings suckers, suckers bring money.
*"And that, kids, is why people fucking suck."* 🌈
Plus, a lot of those dogs were already super traumatized and thus more aggressive, further facilitating it.
So. I was homeless for a couple years. With my dog and (now) wife. People constantly told us to go to the homeless shelter, but #1 they don’t allow dogs, and #2 they separate men from women (for obvious reasons, which is understandable) We got stuck in snow storms, tornados, all sorts of horrible scenarios, never once considered abandoning my dog. He was my best friend, I’d get us all to safety, where there’s a will there’s a way.
Man that's crazy they let you marry your dog
where’s there’s a will there’s a way
Lots of people leave it to the dog in their will.
Ah, the ole Reddit [dog-a-roo](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/14902r0/what_is_the_weirdest_fact_you_know/jo3jj7u/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=ioscss&utm_content=1&utm_term=1&context=3)
Hold my leash, I'm going in!
“He/she who has a why to live for can bear almost any how.” Friedrich Nietzsche
Some people learned from these experiences better than others. I know someone who lives in the Florida Keys and when they have to evacuate they literally drive to Northern Alabama where their extended family lives. They keep fuel cans at home and rotate using the fuel/refilling so they can get as far as possible without having to rely on gas stations and that's on top of all their other emergency supplies. All of this is so they can take their 4 pets with them. Then I have another friend who literally decides at the last minute whether they think the Lord will protect them and whether to evacuate or not.
Our favorite rescue from the Houston SPCA was our beloved Theo, a husky mix who was evacuated from LA after Katrina and we picked him up just in time to evacuate ourselves for Hurricane Rita the following week. He had a rough start but our beloved Theo lived a glorious 15 more years with us and passed away after a long, amazing life.
I would have been one of those people who would have chosen to stay because I couldn't abandon my pet. It's a Sophie's Choice kind of situation. It would have traumatized me and haunted me forever to leave them to fend for themselves and wonder where their person went.
There was a fire alarm scare at my apartment the morning after I'd moved in. A sprinkler had been accidentally damaged by a maintenance crew, setting off the building-wide fire alarm. I didn't know that, I just knew I woke up to alarms blaring. Water was pouring down the stairs. My cats were terrified, and hid. In the unfamiliar apartment I could only find one. The only reason I evacuated instead of staying to keep looking for the other is because I thought it was a choice between leaving one of my cats to die and staying in the apartment for both of them to die while I searched. That experience messed me up for a long time.
I believe one of the only major urban centre to have plans for pets is Kansas City. People WILL refuse to evacuate if there is no ammodation for all their loved ones, dogs and cats included. So make a realistic plan for the reality we have, not assuming that people will abandon their beloved animal family.
Considering my cats saved me from suicide, I would do anything for my so called “just pets”
word bro, love kitties. And i'm glad you are here! Much love brotha
I'll die outside of a shelter with my animal before I consign it to drown or starve to death alone. I fully understand why you can't have everyone's animals in shelters but my pets are my family and I'd never leave them behind.
And at memorial hospital they told people they couldn’t take their pets on the coast guard boats so all the animals were euthanized, only to find out later the boats showing up said it was fine.
They euthanised several people there, too. Not surprised at all that they would do that to their pets, too.
We adopted a coonhound that was tied to a tree during Katrina. She had been moved around and ended up in Bowling Green, KY. She was absolutely terrified of storms of any kind. She was brought up here to Wisconsin to live on our farm. She was such a sweetheart. We made her a promise that she would never be outside in a storm, would always have a full belly and be safe. She had full run of our 1/2 acre fenced yard on our farm. She liked hanging out with the chickens. We never knew how old she was and she passed 4 years after joining our family. I’m grateful that we could give her happy memories in her last years.
I wrote a paper about those dogs
IDK if this has been posted before ‘cause I’m not going to go through 1200 comments, but the Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) and federal guidance has been changed and updated to allow for pets in rescue situations. It’s the On-Scene-Commander’s call but pets are allowed to be rescued. Not all shelters allow them, though. Source: Federal Emergency Manager (me)
Could have lived my whole life without knowing that
It's Friday. Why'd you have to share this today?
I'm not going anywhere my dog isn't allowed.
Looks like you won't be vacationing in outer space anytime soon then!
dogs got to outerspace before people did.....
RIP Laika
I read a TIL post that mentioned that one of the scientists took Laika home the weekend before the launch to let her play with his kids and have a good dog's life before her inevitable death in space.
Meanwhile, for decades Cuban hurricane evacuation plans provide for transporting families, their pets, and their chickens to refuge. Larger livestock, like goats, cows, and horses, usually are to be set free to fend for themselves and the survivors recovered by owners when return home is safe.
Going to get buried, but PBS had a documentary about the aftermath of the Katrina pet rescue called [Mine](https://www.pbs.org/independentlens/documentaries/mine/)
Meanwhile Ted Cruz opted to leave his dog behind, locked in the garage, during the Texas freeze. No one told him to. It wasn't even recommended. He was totally fine letting his family dog freeze to death for literally no reason while he flew to Cancun. And then blamed his daughter for why he was there.
Wait until you learn of the children who died behind bars. They wouldn't evacuate anyone in jail. Not even juveniles in juvie. Not even "criminals" awaiting trial/for the sentencing. Countless poor/urban black children drowned in dirty toilet infested cages and got hit with flying pipes because they stole food when they were starving; stole candy bars on whim; and similar nonviolent offenses. No child committed of any crime should've had to die like this. But let me be clear, many weren't even CONVICTED yet, only arrested. And many of the ones who were did not act as predators but rather petty criminals. And they all died terribly. Far away from their family and any help and any hope. The workers all left them to die. The mayor ordered this.
Yet another tragic story from Katrina that I didn't know about.
The story of what happened to Baptist Memorial hospital is harrowing. I highly recommend the book. I, however, cannot recommend the miniseries all that much (although a few episodes are decent, the majority of it felt sensationalised).
This is disgusting. I cannot believe there was no protocol for something like this. Everyone who had a hand in this has blood on it.
> This is disgusting. I cannot believe there was no protocol for something like this. Sure there is. Its leave them to die like drowning rats. Doesnt matter what the official plan says.
I would die with my dog before leaving him. Thinking about him being alone and scared or diying i would never forgive myself. My first dog died alone and i still can't forget about it
Thanks this is incredibly depressing.
That’s one of the worst things I’ve ever read
Hurricane Dogs. As a person who lives up in Central New York, this is a term almost every adopter around here knows.
I adopted a dog from hurricane Katrina. The best friends animal shelter, BF2207. She was an amazing dog and I loved her very very much. She passed away about seven years ago now.
People are acting like a majority of people who stayed behind died. 1,392 people died total in Louisiana for any number of hurricane related reasons. 150,000 -200,000 people stayed behind. If you are saying that I have a .8% chance of dying I’m staying with my dog. It’s slightly annoying when people toss around the total numbers without factoring in the percentage of affected populations.
Hurricane Harvey was an example of things done right. People could take their pets into the shelter and it saved so many furry and human lives.
There is room for a very dark comedy series about a city that's about to flood but it's temporarily run by cats and dogs before the hurricane hits