The Pets Act - for those we don’t want to leave behind!
A rescue - some were not so lucky!
For many of us on the eastern seaboard, we are in the midst of what might have been a storm of historic proprotions, but Hanna, as the storm is known, has not lived up to her expectations and everyone is breathing a sigh of relief from the Carolinas through eastern New England. However, there are many still in Louisiana who are still recovering from Gustav and still others preparing for what could be the hurricane of the season, and that is Ike. However, we have something now that we never had before. Seeing the many tragedies that occurred with Hurricane Katrina, there were probably few so horrible as seeing owners having to choose between evacuation to save their own lives and leaving their pets behind. Many fatalities resulted from either decision.
A year after Katrina, both the House and the Senate passed a federal bill that became known as the PETS Act. (Pets Evacuation and Transportation Standards Act). The PETS Act requires local and state emergency preparedness authorities to include in their evacuation plans how they will accommodate household pets and service animals in the event of a major disaster. Localities or states will be prohibited from receiving FEMA disaster funding if they do not include plans for the evacuation, shelter and care of the pets of evacuated owners or service animals of evacuees. According to Lauren Silverman, the federal legislative specialist for the Humane Society of the United States, “The PETS Act will prevent people from being forced to make the horrifying and unnecessary choice of either abandoning their animals to save their own lives, or staying with their pets and remaining in a hazardous—and potentially life-threatening—circumstance during a disaster.”
I try to leave political commentary out of this blog, but in this case, I must give kudos to our representatives in D.C., as this was truly one of their smartest decisions!!!
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