In the News: Tails of Marin
By Lynne Osgood
When disaster hits, will your pets be OK?
This weekend marks two years since the Marin Humane Society began flying dogs and cats from the Hurricane Katrina disaster area to the Bay Area for safekeeping. Yes, it has been two years since the Marin community opened its homes and hearts to those wonderful, left-behind pets, and on this bittersweet anniversary, it’s worth reviewing what we all need to do to ensure that our own pets will be protected should a major earthquake or other disaster strike our own region.
First, contact your local fire department and ask about evacuation plans for your area. Also contact the Marin Humane Society for a copy of the Pet Disaster Plan brochure (loveanimals@marinhumanesociety.org or 506-6256). Then make sure that every member of your family knows the plan and is prepared to evacuate safely.
To help protect your home against a wildfire, create defensible space — a protective zone around your property that provides firefighters with an increased ability to defend your home and your pets from an encroaching wildfire. For specifics about creating defensible space, visit the FireSafe Marin Web site at firesafemarin.org.
In addition to protecting your home, create a family or neighborhood disaster response plan that outlines who, where and how to proceed. Plan ahead to ensure that your family and pets will have a safe place to stay because most evacuation shelters do not allow pets. Contact hotels and motels outside of your immediate area to check on pet policies, and check with friends and relatives outside your immediate area to see if they would be able to shelter you and your animals.
Take your pets with you!
If a disaster warrants that you evacuate, take your pets with you. The single most important thing you can do to protect your pets is to take them with you when you evacuate. Animals left behind in a disaster can easily become injured, lost or killed. Animals left inside your home can escape through earthquake-damaged areas, such as broken windows. Animals turned loose to fend for themselves are likely to become victims of exposure, starvation, predators, contaminated food or water, or accidents. Leaving animals tied or chained outside, while always a bad idea, can be a death sentence in a disaster.
Follow all guidelines provided by your emergency services agency and remember to evacuate early, don’t wait for mandatory evacuation orders. If you wait to be evacuated by emergency officials, you may be told to leave your pets behind. Remember that using your car may not be an option, especially if you live in areas with narrow roads and dense vegetation. Walking may be your only choice, so keep that in mind when you are preparing for your evacuation. As part of your personal and pet response plan, prepare an emergency kit in a watertight plastic storage container and include leashes, collars, harnesses, ID tags, water, food, medications, veterinary records and photos to prove ownership.
If you are forced to leave your pet behind, post highly visible signs in windows or doors to let rescue workers know how many pets are inside. Leave plenty of fresh water in a large, open container that cannot be tipped over and leave food in timed feeders that will prevent pets from eating all of their food in one day. Keep your pet’s license current and make sure your pet is wearing a collar with identification tags. Strongly consider getting your pet microchipped; a microchip ID is inexpensive and cannot be lost or removed. Also, make sure your pet’s vaccinations are current.
If there is one lesson we all learned from the Hurricane Katrina disaster, it’s how imperative it is to make preparations to evacuate our pets as well as our other family members. Planning in advance can mean the difference between life and death.
Lynne Osgood is the Marin Humane Society’s SHARE program coordinator and also the coordinator of FireSafe Marin.
Tails of Marin appears every Saturday in the Home & Garden section of the Marin Independent Journal
