Saturday, September 03, 2005

For the Animals

DISASTER UPDATE

To: Ashley Mclure
United Animal Nations supporter

Re: Hurricane Katrina - EARS update
Date: September 2, 2005 (8 PM PST)
From: Jennifer Fearing
UAN President & CEO

We know you've been waiting anxiously to hear more news about what the United Animal Nations' Emergency Animal Rescue Service (EARS) is doing to help animal victims of Hurricane Katrina. The outpouring of support we have received has been truly amazing!

More than 1,500 people have offered to assist with an EARS response in a variety of ways: from performing rescues, providing veterinary care or sheltering animals, to assisting with transport, foster care, supply and equipment donation and much, much more. We are overwhelmed by the generosity and just as eager as you are to see these offers put to use to help the animals.

Here's where things stand tonight...

HOUSTON, TEXAS: A temporary shelter run by the Houston SPCA and staffed by EARS volunteers is expected to receive 500 animal refugees in just a few hours, and hundreds more are expected over the next days and weeks. We are deploying a team of ten EARS volunteers from Northern California tonight, who are taking with them supplies from our headquarters to help establish the emergency shelter. Texas-based trained EARS volunteers have also been activated to respond to the Houston effort.

JACKSON, MISSISSIPPI: UAN is coordinating response efforts with several other organizations that have arrived here and are providing animal disaster relief - including the ASPCA, the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW), Colorado-based Code 3 Associates, the Humane Society of the United States, American Humane and Best Friends Animal Society. Decisions are being made this evening about how best to deploy these resources and where EARS will be staging inside the disaster zone.

LOUISIANA: We talked with authorities in the state today who expressed need for our coordination and resources. We await word tomorrow morning about their specific needs for EARS services.

SACRAMENTO, CALIFORNIA: Here at UAN headquarters, we are receiving hundreds of calls each day from evacuees and others who are missing their animals. We developed a coordinated approach to managing these rescue requests with other animal disaster relief organizations which will ensure that they are put in the hands of whatever team deploys in any region. The calls just break our hearts and we hope we're able to get to the animals in time. This is clearly a disaster like no other. Our teams are doing all they can to help. Stay updated about our efforts by reading our daily Action Report, which we update by 9AM PST every single day. If you are one of the people who have given generously to our disaster relief fund - thank you! Please help us by telling your friends about our efforts to help the animals and encouraging them to make a donation.

If you have not already donated to UAN, please consider doing so today so that we can buy the supplies, equipment and other necessities we will need to operate our rescue and sheltering efforts, over what we expect to be a very long deployment. Never in our nearly 20 year history have we faced the daunting tasks we do now... every little bit will help.

We've already started to make a difference. We know you're concerned about the animals and we will be keeping you updated about our efforts.

Thank you!

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