It wasn’t much of a contest in the U.S. House last Monday when lawmakers overwhelmingly passed a bill requiring state and local preparedness offices to take pets into account when they draw up emergency response plans. Coloradans, with their multitudes of furry companions, surely let out a cheer.
The problem is, the bill didn’t contain funding to help implement the plan. Colorado veterinarian Kevin Dennison, who heads the State Animal Response Team, says it is struggling to operate on a small budget. We like a similar bill introduced in the Senate, giving authority to the Federal Emergency Management Agency to grant funds to state and local agencies for animal preparedness projects, including building emergency shelters.
Dennison says the legislation deals only with household pets and service animals and says nothing about horses and other animals that should be included in an emergency plan for a state such as Colorado. Even so, we’re confident the bill will provoke states to get their animal response plans in order, as Colorado is already doing.
The legislation stemmed from last year’s Hurricane Katrina disaster, when tens of thousands of animals died or were left without shelter. Who can forget the sad-eyed creatures sprawled on rooftops waiting for help that never came? Many pet owners were put in danger during the flooding when they refused to leave their pets behind. Rescuers, with limited resources, were ordered not to take them.
Under the bill, offices that fail to include pets in their emergency planning would not qualify for FEMA grants. The Humane Society of the United States cited a Zogby International poll that found that 49 percent of adults say they would refuse to evacuate if they couldn’t take their pets with them. The society said the legislation will ensure that Americans will “never again be forced to make an impossibly difficult choice: leave their animal behind while they flee a disaster or take their chances by staying in a disaster-stricken area with their pet.”
Dennison’s office is currently rewriting a draft of Colorado’s emergency response plan for animals. But both the state and federal governments should provide funding to help planners craft emergency response efforts and to implement them.
