Hurricane shelters for pets
Summary of Press Release
By Sharon St Joan, Best Friends NetworkFollowing Hurricane Dean, Gerardo Huertas, the Director of Disaster Operations for the Americas for WSPA visited the Jamaica SPCA, a WSPA member, to offer their help, according to a WSPA press release posted September 10, 2007 on Earthtimes.org
Pam Lawson, the General Manager of JSPCA said that they had continued to operate during the storm despite losing water and electricity. About 200 animals were brought to their shelter, including 29 who had been rescued from gullies. She explained that WSPA had provided funding to purchase a generator and that WSPA had also made it possible for them to be able to keep the pets of people displaced by the hurricane for up to six weeks, giving the human hurricane victims time to get back on their feet and then reclaim their pets.
WSPA, the JSPCA, and the Office of Disaster Preparedness and Emergency Management (ODPEM) will be working together to set up
two emergency shelters which can be set up next to human disaster shelters, for use during hurricanes. The animal shelters will be able to withstand hurricane force winds and will be able to hold sixty to eighty animals, so that people seeking shelter will have a place for their pets to stay.
Gerardo Huertas expressed his hope that this will become a model program that can be duplicated throughout the Caribbean and in other locations where there are frequent hurricanes.
What you can do To read the entire press release, please go to:
http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/news_press_release,174713.
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To visit the website of Jamaica SPCA, please go to:
http://www.jspca.info/index.htm