E.A.R. Saves 450 Animals in New Orleans

Larry King, Lisa Lightfoot and Douglas Lake with the EAR in the Garden District, New Orleans. photo submitted by Lisa Lightfoot

By Ruth Lepper

Volunteers with the Ramona-based Emergency Animal Rescue answer calls day and night, anywhere help is needed. When a call came through asking for volunteers certified in swiftwater rescue, Doug Lake was on his way to New Orleans to help in the aftermath of hurricane Katrina.

Lake is the executive director of E.A.R. and his specialized training includes certification as a swiftwater rescue technician. He left for New Orleans on Sept. 1 and was there for 11 days.

E.A.R. volunteers Lisa Lightfoot, of Descanso, and Larry King, of El Cajon, also were in New Orleans with Lake. Lightfoot stayed with the rescue team for the 11 days but King had to return home after a few days.

The rescue unit to which they were assigned, Code 3 Associates, a rapid response disaster team from Longmont, Colo., was credited with saving the lives of more than 450 animals — dogs, cats, an iguana, hamster, pig and albino python snake.

Douglas Lake and Mike with Code 3 Associates out of Colorado in the Elysian Field Area, New Orleans. photo submitted by Lisa Lightfoot

Their days were long, 5:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m., traveling the flood water of New Orleans’ Garden District and outlying areas in a 14-foot Zodiac inflatable boat. They carried kennels for holding rescued animals until they could be taken to a receiving area.

Lake estimated “95 percent of those animals will never see their owners again.” For many of the owenrs, if they did want to claim their pets, they would have nowhere to take them. Their homes were gone and evacuation centers, such as those run by

the American Red Cross and Salvation Army, would not accept animals with the evacuees.

Another reason is that the owners may not be able to locate their dogs. Whenever a dog was rescued, Lake said they would put a nylon collar on the animal, complete with information about where and when it was found. When they later saw the animal at the receiving center, the collar with the information was gone.

The EAR Team helps rescues dogs from a house under water. photo submitted by Lisa Lightfoot

When they traveled to the Garden District, Lake said they had addresses and maps directing them to homes where owners had reported leaving their animals. Dogs were standing on porches on the second level of the houses, waiting for someone to find them.

One dog had been tied to the shower in an upstairs bathroom. The owner had left the toilet seat up so the dog would have water to drink. The dog, however, had wound its rope around and around the base of the toilet and was unable to reach the water.

Many of the houses where dogs were found had opened 50-pound bags of dog food and several pans of clean water left out where the dogs could get to them. Other dogs were not as fortunate. They were dehydrated from lack of water and had lost weight from not eating. One dog, in particular, Lake said should have weighed 80 pounds. By the time dog was rescued, its weight was down to about 50 pounds.

The iguana was an easy rescue. Lake entered a house in the Garden District and found the lizard sitting in its terrarium. It was the same for the hamster; it was safe in its cage and didn’t object when Lake picked up the cage and carried it to the boat.

The pig was another story. It was a very large pig and didn’t care about being rescued.

“It was the family pet,” Lake said. “Rudy, the pig. It weighed several hundred pounds. We had to use a bobcat to pick up the kennel to transport it.”

But not every animal they came across was rescued.

“We saw some dead dogs; we saw some dead humans,” Lake said. “The dogs that we got that we knew had been drinking (contaminated water) were mostly bags of bones.”

They found a pit bull in one house that was caring for her puppy. There were bird feathers scattered around where the dogs were laying under a bed.

“The mother (dog) had snagged pigeons to feed herself,” Lake said. “She knew if she could eat and stay alive, then she could nurse her baby. It was self-preservation.”

If the rescuers spotted people needing help, they would radio for a helicopter to come to the scene.

There were areas where the rescue boats were accompanied by patrol boats manned by armed members of the National Guard, keeping an eye out for snipers.

“There were people shooting at us,” Lake said. “Not everyone wanted us to be there.”

After King left the team, Lake and Lightfoot were joined by the driver of the Big Animal Rescue Truck, or BART.

The man’s name was “Goose” and he turned out to be a tremendous asset to the rescue efforts.

“Though he had no formal training in animal rescue techniques, he quickly became very proficient in the fine art of breaking down doors or tearing out window frames to gain entry into a house,” Lake said.

Goose often acted as a “human ladder” to assist Lake in getting to the rooftops where dogs were waiting to be rescued.

“In so many instances, his safety was put aside for the sake of an animal,” Lake said. “He, too, was a hero in every sense of the word.”

The rescue teams shared living quarters in BART, a 77-foot tractor-trailer that had enough provisions and sleeping area for a crew of nine and all the animals for one week, including the capacity to carry 400 gallons of water.

In addition, the truck housed an office, kitchen area, bathroom with shower and an emergency operating room for veterinarians to care for the rescued animals.

It also had built-in kennels for the animals and adequate space for three inflatable boats, truck, horse trailer and portable horse corrals.

It wasn’t a surprise, Lake said, to discover that a truck that size could only get 4 miles to a gallon of gasoline.

Emergency Animal Rescue was started in Ramona in 1994 and is a 501c3 nonprofit organization, staffed entirely by volunteers and depending on donations to meet operating expenses. For more information, call (760) 789-5775.