Originally appearing at: Voices of New Orleans

Some of the more enduring images from the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina were those of the many animals left behind in New Orleans and on the Gulf Coast. As volunteers from animal organizations headed south in the days after the storm, they found desperate dogs, cats, horses, birds, snakes and cows that residents thought would be fine for a day or two but of course tragically found themselves trapped and alone for weeks on end. Even worse were the images of people in New Orleans who weathered the storm to stay with their pets and then had to make bitter and brutal choices before accepting a rescue from a helicopter, boat or bus. At every turn it seemed desperate people had to make desperate choices about their lives or the animals they loved. After losing so much, it was truly horrific to then have to lose so much more. Ultimately, Katrina and the ensuing failure of the levees changed the way America looks at animals, and new legislation was passed to protect the rights of pet owners. Hopefully there will never be another animal tragedy to compound a human tragedy of this magnitude again.

But still, that is for the future, and what happened on the Gulf Coast is still very recent and very hard to bear.

Authors Allen and Linda Anderson set out to collect not only stories about how animals in Louisiana and Mississippi were affected by Katrina but also to provide a guidebook for animal lovers as to what they should do if faced by a natural disaster. Rescued: Saving Animals from Disaster succeeds very well when writing about the hurricane and levee failure — there are multiple narratives about those who stayed behind (most famously Dr. James Riopelle at Lindy Boggs Medical Center Hospital) and those who raced to the rescue. It is all rather gripping stuff, and this is the first time such comprehensive interviews and research have been collected in one volume.

It is disappointing that the authors sought out celebrity opinions on animal rescue for their book, however; there is plenty of drama here without giving us the thoughts of Linda Blair or Rue McClanahan. Celebrities don’t need to be part of the narrative when so many others were willing to risk everything to do what they believed in. Let the real stars have all the limelight — the ones who were waist deep in water and knocking down doors; those are the stories readers want to hear, and Rescued has plenty of them to impress the hell out of us.

There were several parts of the book that surprised me, such as when the Andersons delve into the different goals and methods employed by the many disparate rescue groups who converged on the region. From Matthew McConaughey rescuing Riopelle live on Oprah, to PetSmart sending thousands of pounds of dog food, the collection of people and groups who contributed to the rescue effort is almost hard to believe. Further, there are the stories here that we never heard about. I had no idea for example that people actually tried to steal rescued animals from places like the Lamar-Dixon center in Gonzales, the place that had been established by the Louisiana SPCA as a primary sheltering area. People wanted lost pets either as potential fighting dogs (the many pit bulls in New Orleans drew this sort of negative attention) or, somehow even worse, according the Humane Society’s Dave Pauli, there were, “…volunteers who wanted a lifelong memento of the experience in the form of a rescued animal.�

I don’t even know what to do with that bit of information.

Beyond the SPCA and Humane Society, there were dozens of smaller groups that arrived with their own separate areas of expertise and ideas about what should be done. For the Louisiana SPCA, it rapidly became clear just how impossible it was to try and control the burgeoning rescue effort, and as days went by and the possibility of finding animals alive lessened, many rescuers found it difficult or impossible or even downright silly to worry about following rules. Some rescuers considered the idea of worrying about locked doors or owner permission to be ludicrous. As Mike Pagano explained to the Andersons, “I don’t care if the animals ever got back with their owners. They were left to suffer for weeks. They died tied to kitchens chairs and in cages.� The main goal for Pagano and others was to rescue the animals, and what happened next was beside the point.

One very big story that continues to unfold right now is also covered in Rescued: that of the dogs shot to death while chained to desks in St. Bernard Parish High School. There were four schools where murdered dogs were found, all of them carefully tied up and left by owners after being promised by deputies that animal rescue groups were on the way. Witnesses later stated it was St Bernard’s police officers who killed the dogs at the schools, and recently one current and one former deputy were indicted in connection with street shootings of dogs in the days following the storm; they will be arraigned next month. Those who committed the murders at the schools, though, have yet to be identified. (Read more about the unfolding story here.

I hope that Rescued is the first of many books written about the toll paid by animals in the wake of Katrina, as I am certain there are literally thousands of stories to tell. This particular book will have a great deal of interest both for those who are just beginning to wonder what really happened down there and also for those who were intimately involved in the rescues but were unable to see the larger picture due to their own close proximity. The Andersons did a very effective job with their book, albeit a bit of a broader approach then I think was necessary. All they really needed to write about was what happened after Hurricane Katrina; that is the story readers want right now, and for the animals, the one that is only beginning to be heard.