Once again, members of our Animal Rescue Team are taking action on the ground in the wake of disaster in a particularly brutal storm season. It never ceases to amaze me how quickly this team moves and how many places they go, including areas where there are so few resources. They endure considerable hardship, sometimes even having to camp out or sleep in their cars, eating and resting when they can, all to respond to the dire needs of people and communities who have often suffered unfathomable losses.
Over the past weeks, we’ve been responding in the U.S. and abroad. We’ve dispatched teams to communities in Florida and Tennessee hard-hit by the deadly category 4 Hurricane Helene. Creating pop-up veterinary clinics and setting up pet supply distribution drive-thru points, this team works all hours so that people can easily get the care they need for their animals while they are displaced from, or have lost, their homes. So far, we have four teams in four different counties in two different states—Cocke and Unicoi in Tennessee and Madison and Taylor in Florida. They are hard at work distributing thousands of pounds of pet food, as well as cat litter, pet bedding and other necessary supplies.
