Crook to the Rescue
When Best Friends went down to Louisiana and Mississippi to rescue animals after Katrina, we didn’t know what we were getting into. And yet we saved thousands of animals.
When Best Friends agreed to rescue 1,200 rabbits from a woman’s backyard in Reno, there was no plan in place. Still, all the rabbits (at one point, over 1,600 of them) are safe, cared for and getting adopted.
Imagine what we could have done had Richard Crook been around.
Crook (pictured left with Lucky) joined the Best Friends team in May as rapid response manager, the go-to guy for future disaster response. Even as the ink was drying on his contract, Crook was deployed to the Best Friends rabbit rescue ranch in Reno to streamline operations and oversee progress.
“It’s easier to come in on the ground floor of a rescue operation -- I came into the rabbit rescue in the middle,” said Crook. “I was overwhelmed by the sheer magnitude of the job. We needed to get systems in place quickly.”
And he did. Crook assigned team leaders for animal care, medical care and administration. He talked with all the employees, found out where they could best be used, and gave them specific job descriptions and goals. Once a hierarchy was in place and everyone knew who was in charge, the days ran smoother and the hours ran shorter.
Crook’s background provided a lot of practical experience for his work at Best Friends. He worked for 22 years as a firefighter, retiring as a lieutenant. That training served him well when he volunteered his services to help out with the animal rescue efforts during Hurricane Katrina.
Crook wants to ensure that preparation and organization will be part of the next disaster response. He is helping to develop a network of more than 60 people from around the country who will coordinate rescue efforts when the “next big thing” hits. The group is also drafting a Standard Operating Procedures Manual containing guidelines for emergency operations.
Of course, planning isn’t everything. “With any disaster, there’s always going to be some making it up as you go along,” Crook explained. “You have to be creative and improvise. If you’re driving along and you come to a tree blocking the middle of the road, you either move it or you go around. Waiting for someone else to move it is simply not an option.”
In a perfect world, we wouldn’t need a Richard Crook. But with hurricane season 2006 officially under way, we’re glad to have him on our team!
Written by Amy Abern. Photos by Clay Myers.