Harvey: Pets Battle, Swim Into Our Hearts From Deadly Floods

HOUSTON, TX — Left behind in hurried evacuations as Hurricane Harvey’s more punishing twin, Tropical Storm Harvey, unleashed unfathomable amounts of rain on the Houston area, dogs, cats and other pets are among the record-setting storm’s uncounted casualties. One jarring image shows an orange cat, its ears pinned back in what must have been a difficult but determined swim to safety. Whether the cat made it is a haunting question, one surely on the minds of flood victims all along the battered Texas Gulf Coast worrying about the fate of pets they’ve come to depend on like family.

Many made it to safety, though, and animal shelters around the country are taking them in. They’ve found refuge in Illinois, New York, Florida, New Jersey, Georgia and — well, anywhere an animal shelter could find space for them. Animal-rescue volunteers are kindred spirits, sharing the same DNA that motivates the volunteers who make up the famous Cajun Navy flotilla of outdoorsmen, who are credited with saving hundreds of human lives in the aftermath of Hurricane Harvey.

The animals stranded in the flood had a pretty tough time of it. (Are you new to the Patch hyperlocal news network? We’re in all 50 states. Click here to find your local Patch and sign up for real-time news alerts and morning newsletters.)

Erika Benitez, a member of a disaster response team from Miami-Dade County that was among 12 dispatched by FEMA to help out in the rescue effort, said she and another responder plucked a pair of dogs they’re collectively calling “Tails of Hope” from Harvey’s floodwaters near Angelton, Texas.

The specially trained, 45-member swift water search-and-rescue team members carry 60,000 pounds of supplies and equipment with them, including a seven-day supply of dog chow to sustain pooches they find during their missions.

Tails of Hope were “stranded, waiting to be rescued,” Benitez told Miami Patch, noting that “man’s best friend came to the rescue of hope.”

“Hurricane Harvey has impacted Texas in more ways than one, bringing record, catastrophic flooding and heavily damaging homes and businesses,” Benitez said, continuing the metaphor. “But in the midst of tragedy came hope.”

Beth Berenson watched the drama in Texas unfolding from Illinois and knew she had to help. She’s a volunteer at a PAWS of Tinley Park shelter, which took in 18 dogs from a flooded PAWS shelter in Texas. Berenson and Will Hastert, another PAWS volunteer, made the 32-hour round trip to a temporary shelter in Dallas, where the dogs had been relayed after animal-lover Rachel Ralston Miller risked her life to rescue them.

“I had been following the news when I saw all the shelters had to be cleared out. This shelter happened to be one that flooded,” Berenson told the Tinley Park, Illinois, Patch. “It’s terrible down there. The shelter people have lost their homes, their cars, their living and their dogs. They are amazing.”

Watch the dogs’ arrival below.

In many cases, the dogs and cats being flown around the country were in shelters and ready to be adopted. They’ve been neutered and spayed, and are up to date on their vaccinations. They weren’t attached to families who are frantically searching for them, and relocating them to await adoption frees up shelter space for animals displaced from the storm and “keeps them close to home,” Heather Cammisa, who runs a New Jersey rescue group that plans to take in about 100 dogs, said in a statement to the Madison, New Jersey, Patch.

Receiving shelters made it clear they’re not putting people’s pets up for adoption, and that the cats and dogs available for adoption aren’t animals left traumatized after fighting for their lives in the fast-rising floodwaters that swamped Houston and surrounding areas for days. Rather, finding homes for ready-to-adopt animals takes the strain off shelters in Texas and Louisiana for what could be a long haul to get pets and their owners reunited.

“These animals are not animals that were displaced by the hurricanes, lost from their families or strays found on the streets during/after the hurricane,” a shelter volunteer wrote in an email to the Atlanta, Georgia, Patch, repeating a clarion call across the nation to find forever homes for hundreds of pets. “These were already adoptable animals at the Houston SPCA before Hurricane Harvey hit.”

And so it went around the country.

The Brother Wolf Animal Rescue group in Asheville, North Carolina, was working with with four coastal animal shelters to move the animals from harm’s way. In Middleton, New York, the Pets Alive rescue group was working with area rescue groups to get them placed in shelters, the Mid Hudson Valley, New York, Patch reported.

Back in the Chicago area, the South Suburban Humane Society in Chicago was also taking part in the national effort to take in dogs rescued from shelters in the Texas Gulf Coast.

“The faster we find good homes for them, the faster we can keep helping,” the South Suburban Humane Society said after taking in 27 dogs, according to a report by the Chicago Heights, Illinois, Patch.

The national outreach campaign to place the pets is “a different kind of rescue operation,” the Romeo Humane Society, also in suburban Chicago, said an urgent call to find foster homes for the four-legged victims of Harvey, according to a report in the Romeoville, Illinois, Patch.

The rescue group said potential fosters must be willing to take in an animal that “we will know very little about” and must also be able to quarantine them separately from other pets “until a full vetting and behavioral assessment can be done,” according to a statement. “Fosters must understand we rely solely on fosters and must be able to keep these animals until adoption no matter how difficult the situation may be.”

Below, here are more images of animals’ fight for survival in the historic flooding, and of some of the people who love them.

Steve Culver cries with his dog Otis as he talks about what he said was the “most terrifying event in his life,” when Hurricane Harvey blew in and destroyed most of his home while he and his wife took shelter in Rockport, Texas, where Harvey made landfall as a Category 4 storm that has been reported as the strongest hurricane to hit the United States since Wilma in 2005. (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

A cat sits on top of a car which is surrounded by flood water in the parking lot of a Houston apartment complex after it was inundated with water following Hurricane Harvey. (Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images)

Shannon Danley carries a rabbit to a rescue boat after it was found floating in floodwater in a Houston apartment complex inundated with water following Hurricane Harvey. (Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images)

Jacque McKay walks through the Rockport apartment complex where she lives with her dog and rode out the storm after Hurricane Harvey destroyed many of the apartments when it slammed into the seaport town on Aug. 25. McKay said she was able to rescue her dog but lost pretty much everything else. (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

Wings of Rescue co-pilot Jose G. Martinez reaches for one of the last of of a load of 35 dogs from Texas shelters flown to make space for companion animals rescued in the Hurricane Harvey aftermath, Wednesday, Aug. 30, 2017, in Seattle. The dogs arriving in Seattle were already in Texas shelters when Harvey hit and are being transferred to Seattle-area shelters so animals displaced from the flooding can be cared for in Texas until they can be reunited with their families there. The rescue transfer is a collaboration between Humane Society of the United States, Wings of Rescue, the Progressive Animal Welfare Society (PAWS) and other Seattle-area shelters. (AP Photo/Elaine Thompson)

Wings of Rescue volunteer Cathi Perez leans down to embrace rescue dog Sandy, the last of a load of 35 dogs from Texas shelters flown to make space for companion animals rescued in the Hurricane Harvey aftermath, in Seattle. (AP Photo/Elaine Thompson)

And here’s a rescue via the Washington Post.

Feature photo: A cat tries to find dry ground around an apartment complex after it was inundated with water following Hurricane Harvey on August 30, 2017 in Houston, Texas. Harvey, which made landfall north of Corpus Christi August 25, has dumped nearly 50 inches of rain in and around Houston. (Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images)