FEMA is deciding whether to allow evacuees from Katrina to rescue their own and others' pets. Please call and pressure them into allowing this! How can that screwed up agency even debate such a thing! Call or email here:

The Honorable Michael Brown
Under Secretary of Homeland Security for Emergency Preparedness and Response
500 C St. S.W.
Washington, DC 20472
202-646-3900
202-646-3930 (fax)

Email:
FEMAOPA@dhs.gov

I'm glad you started this post Margo, because I was just about to. The media is portraying the holdouts staying in their houses as stubborn and illogical...even ungrateful and insane. But the news is not telling you that many of them are staying because they don't want to leave their furbabies behind!!! I sure as hell would not have left my Punky, my Woody....no way! It's so messed up that rescuers cannot take the pet along with the owner. As if these people have not been through enough, but to have to leave your dog or cat behind in a flooded house...no food, no clean water - the only certainty is death. On the news last night the reporters were going through the house of an old Jazz Great...they didn't find him. All they found "were his two Chihuahuas" who were huddled together, scared and shaking. No rescue for them apparently.

I know that Humane Society and others are launching their own pet rescue efforts. Thank God. But it's too little too late. This is is just another aspect of the overall piss-poor planning on all levels.