Several months ago I wrote an article on disasters and caring for your animals. Since that time a fellow GPA/OK member, Nancy Martin, attended a workshop in New Orleans presented by United Animal Nation. Nancy gave a report at our last GPA meeting. It was very interesting to hear all the things she learned. Nancy graciously allowed me to use her story for an article. I thought it would be a nice follow-up to the article I wrote earlier. Following is her story.
By: Nancy Martin
"Last October, I had the opportunity to attend an excellent disaster preparedness workshop in New Orleans given byUnited Animal Nation's Emergency Animal Rescue Service, a.k.a. EARS. These workshops are held around the country to encourage people to first and foremost, be prepared to care for their own animals and secondly, be of assistance to other domestic animals and their owners during disaster and/or evacuation situations. Each workshop is lead by one or more of EARS 20 disaster coordinators, consists of approximately 20 participants and lasts about 9 hours. In addition to the two goals mentioned earlier, each workshop also covers areas such as:
Realities of volunteering during disasters
Basics of emergency management and the different civic entities involved
Importance of thinking with your HEAD not your HEART
Nuts and bolts of what EARS can/does do in disaster situations
Evaluating your skills and how they can be of use
Each participant received a 1-inch binder containing information ranging from copies of articles about UAN and EARS, to preparedness checklists, mobilization information, volunteer duties and requirements, supplies & equipment needed, dealing with the media, taking care of yourself, and forms and procedures (all of which are copyright-free and intended to be used by any organization needing them). The information is extensive, so I won't even try to cover all the areas, but let me share some of the biggest issues and a few things my husband David and I have done since the workshop.
My particular group consisted of individual citizens like myself, local veterinary technicians and several groups from animal shelters in Louisiana and Mississippi. Our disaster coordinator was a fellow Greyhound lover named Deborah Horn from the St.Louis area who got involved with EARS during the horrendous 1992 Mississippi and Missouri River floods. The first thing she did was to not only have us introduce ourselves, but also identify the numbers and types of animals we were each personally responsible for (not shelter animals) and broke them into categories: cats, dogs, greyhounds, horses, rodents, reptiles, birds and fish. I was amazed that our small group of 16 was responsible for over 60 varied types of animals!
