JACKSON, WY— Layne Ezzell knows that when disaster strikes, it’s important to have a plan to help guide the chaos.
She should know—she evacuated her home in New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina, and lived “too close for comfort” to the Roosevelt fire in Daniel, Wyoming this fall.
It’s why she took the Disaster Animal Response Team (DART) training the weekend of December 1. She knows that animals can be the hardest part of dealing with disaster. During Hurricane Katrina, too many people didn’t evacuate “because they didn’t want to leave their pets behind.”
PAWS of Jackson Hole offers some form of DART training every year as part of their disaster response program. Hurricane Katrina did indeed dramatically “change the face of disaster response,” said PAWS Program Director Jess Farr. Katrina killed roughly 2,000 people, and more than 600,000 pets died or were abandoned. As a result, FEMA enacted the Pets Act, which requires communities that apply for FEMA funding to have an evacuation plan for pets.
But Katrina was far from home. Seven years later, however, the Horsethief Canyon fire “swept through our community,” and almost required a mandatory evacuation of East Jackson homes. That never became necessary, but it made one thing very clear: “our community needed a more formal evacuation plan for pets,” Farr said. So PAWS stepped in and offered to help.
You’ve likely seen the PAWS disaster trailer parked in the KMART parking lot, or the Jackson/Teton County Animal Shelter. It’s equipped with all the supplies needed to care for up to 150 pets during a local evacuation. The DART training Ezzell completed earlier this month gives people the skills to help pets and their families should disaster strike in Teton County Wyoming or Idaho.
The course is taught by American Humane Association’s “Red Star Emergency Services.”American Humane is “one of the premiere first responder organizations in the US for pets,” Farr said. Over the course of two days, volunteers learn everything there is to know about building and managing a temporary animal shelter in case of evacuation. There are now more than 40 certified volunteers throughout Teton County ready to help if disaster strikes.
Farr said she “can’t imagine” having to evacuate and not being able to bring her pet. But Ezzell can. She got lucky during Hurricane Katrina, and was able to bring her two dogs and two cats with her to her aunt’s house. Plenty weren’t so lucky.
“[My situation] was different from people who didn’t know where to go, or have anything to go back to,” Ezzell said. Still, Ezzell was only in middle school when Katrina hit. She remembers it, but it certainly didn’t make her feel more prepared to deal with a disaster in adulthood. So when she saw smoke from the Roosevelt Fire through her window, she first wondered what she would do with her pets if she needed to evacuate.
It’s especially complicated in Teton County, she said, where “everyone has horses and livestock. Just logistically trying to move all of that, and feeling so overwhelmed… you don’t know how much time you’re gonna have to leave.”
If Teton County and PAWS are able to have something in place already to at least relieve the burden of pets, that’s huge in terms of having people evacuate,” Ezzell continued.
PAWS’ disaster response program follows under Teton County Emergency Management’s jurisdiction, so they won’t step into action until Emergency Management tells them to. But should that ever happen, a team of more than 40 volunteers is now trained and ready to act.
“This is a really vital program for Teton County,” Farr said.
And it’s especially impressive that it’s comprised of volunteers.
“Our volunteers are the backbone of our program,” Farr said. “We feel very fortunate to have our team, who have put the time in to be properly trained. This group of people has made local pets their priority when a disaster strikes.”
