by Cathy Scott
I want to personally thank all of the rescuers who were on a mission to save the animals of New Orleans, something that I could not do during my two weeks of horror. They are the epitome of selflessness and I wish I could have saved those animals as well.
We currently have an all white American Bulldog, which we got when I returned from New Orleans. The vision of Diesel, who I thought was dead, was with me when we picked up our dog. I was hoping that you could tell me if you have found her a home. I would love to have her in my forever home if her disposition would allow her to bond to another female dog. If not, then I would love to hear if she has been placed into a loving home.
Thank you,
LTJG Brandon Guldseth
United States Coast Guard
It was a stunning letter, and it answered the questions we had about how Diesel came to be in the boat and who had painted those words, letting the rescue team know that a dog was hiding there. Her owner had not left her, as we’d originally thought, and her person had not painted those words on the side of the boat. Instead, it appeared she had taken cover in the boat, albeit next to a leaky diesel outboard motor.
In a telephone interview afterward, Brandon said it took him more than a year to adjust after he left New Orleans. “I was in a daze when I returned, not only because of what I saw,” he said, “but because of what I heard and smelled as well. I think it took me over a year to process all the information, which bombarded my senses. The suffering and death of people and animals most certainly had an effect on my psyche.”
Brandon was told that Diesel had been fostered out to a volunteer a week after she was rescued. For Brandon, knowing that Diesel was rescued and later placed in a home lifted the weight he’d felt all those months after having to leave her. Diesel, as the book Brandon stumbled across had shown, was not left behind after all.
2
Poodle on a Rooftop
WILLIAM MORGAN SAT STOICALLY as an attorney pushed his wheelchair to the podium inside the Louisiana State Capitol, a historic building in Baton Rouge.
But another kind of history was being made that day. It was May 22, 2006, a Monday, nearly nine months after William had been evacuated from the floodwater at the edge of his rooftop. A Louisiana legislative panel was convening to look into the treatment of people’s pets in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Morgan LeFay, William’s apricot Standard Poodle, was by his side as he testified about their experience.
Legislators listened to speaker after speaker plead their cases for the animals—including William Morgan, who told the story about how he came to lose his dog, his companion, during the storm. When William, an articulate, educated man, spoke about his ordeal, those listening in the gallery openly wept.
According to William, he had not meant to abandon Miss Morgan, as he calls his dog, who was just a little more than a year old when the hurricane hit. A double-amputee and a war veteran in his early seventies who had served in the armed forces in France, William floated to the ceiling of his home when the Seventeenth Street levee was breached. He tried to punch through the attic roof but failed. When he realized that time was running out, he dog-paddled to a window and was able to get it open. He went through it and then swam to the eave of the roof.
But when William heard his dog frantically splashing at the ceiling inside his home on Benefit Street near Franklin Avenue in East Orleans, he swam back for her. Together, they made their way to the roof’s edge, because there wasn’t anything else for them to hold on to. William pushed his dog out of the water and onto the roof. But he couldn’t get enough leverage to pull himself onto it.
For the next fourteen hours, William stayed in the water with one arm held tightly around a tree limb and the other around his dog as the rain and storm water slapped at them and thrashed them about. Because the storm hit while he was still in bed, William had not had a chance to get dressed. He was naked as he fought to stay afloat while keeping his dog out of the water. “I kept lifting and pushing Miss Morgan back onto the roof,” William said. “She kept sliding back into the water.” He knew if he let her go, she would wash away. Once she realized, however, that she wouldn’t slip if she moved a few steps higher toward the peak of the roof, that’s where she stayed put, a few feet from William.
United States Coast Guard members arrived in a boat at William’s house fourteen hours into his ordeal. “They threw me a rope,” William said. “I put it around me.”
Then he asked, “What about my dog?”
“We’ll get your dog,” they promised.
“I won’t get in until you get my dog.”
“We will,” they said. “You need to get in first.”
“But as soon as they pulled me onto the boat, they sped away without Miss Morgan,” he said. They told him they weren’t allowed to rescue pets.
As William was motored away from his home, all he could see was his dog’s confused face. “She was crying, whining, and barking,” William said. “Several blocks over I could still hear her. It was awful.” He thought he’d never see Morgan LeFay again.
William was taken by helicopter to the New Orleans airport, where he was given a hospital gown to wear, although, he said, “It was open and my backside was exposed.” A day later, a stranger gave him a T-shirt. Because no wheelchairs were available, he stayed on a gurney at the airport for a couple of days before he was flown to a veterans’ hospital in Miami, Florida. After a story about William’s evacuation appeared in the Sun Sentinel, a volunteer there began an online search for his dog. A description was also posted on a lost-animal Web site, which asked animal welfare groups to be on the lookout for “Miss Morgan LeFay,” and gave her description as twenty inches high, fourteen to sixteen months old, and not wearing tags.
Because the Petfinder lost-and-found Web site at www.petfinder.org wasn’t yet available for evacuees, the volunteer had no way of knowing that on September 11, twelve days after William was tricked into leaving Morgan LeFay behind, a Best Friends rapid response team had rescued the dog from her perch on the roof, where she was still standing as if she were waiting for William to return for her. On the water with the team that day was Associated Press photographer Rick Bowmer. The image of a thin Poodle standing precariously on the peak of a roof, surrounded by water and floating debris, moved across the national wire. When the team got closer, the Poodle slipped into the water and they lifted her onto a flat boat.
The same team stopped by the Jefferson Parish Animal Shelter on their way back to Camp Tylertown to pick up more displaced animals. In the shelter was another apricot Standard Poodle, this one with matted, overgrown fur. No one could tell she was a Poodle until the next morning when she was groomed, shaved down, and put into a ten-by-ten run with Morgan LeFay.
Meanwhile, the volunteer working on William’s behalf sent e-mails to the different rescue groups in the area. One e-mail made it to Camp Tylertown. Because the two apricot-colored Poodles had been rescued the same day and kept in the same run, no one could tell them apart. It was left to William to identify which one of the look-alikes was his. So, two weeks after the match was made, both Poodles were driven by volunteers Catherine “Cat” Gabrel and Virginia Kilmer for a reunion at the Miami hospital where William was receiving long-term treatment for cuts, bruises, and diabetes complications. As the two dogs stepped into the car to leave Camp Tylertown, an Animal Planet crew was on hand to film the two Poodles, who by then had become quite attached to each other.
Once in Miami, with the camera crew capturing the moment, there was no doubt. The real Morgan LeFay walked right up to William. “It was a wonderful reunion,” Cat said. “You couldn’t help but cry.”
After the tearful gathering, Morgan LeFay and the second Poodle, who was named Dalilah, were driven by Cat and Virginia to the same foster home in Florida. Morgan LeFay remained there until William was released from the hospital and settled into permanent housing. Dalilah stayed behind with her foster family.
Nine months later, over Easter w
eekend in 2006, foster mom Linda Walser drove Morgan LeFay nine hundred miles to her new home with William in Alexandria, Louisiana, where Miss Morgan has a fenced yard and a doggie door. Linda took along plenty of tennis balls because Morgan LeFay had gotten hooked on playing fetch in her foster home. As before, Morgan LeFay recognized William immediately and ran to him.
Once home, William saw a difference in his dog, who had been young and still puppylike before the storm. Before Katrina, “Miss Morgan was a bull in a china shop,” he said. “Now, she’s at home both inside and out.
“She goes in and out of the dog door, and she [still] enjoys chasing squirrels in the yard. I didn’t realize how much I missed her until she got here. It’s truly wonderful. It’s the best Easter I’ve ever had in my life.”
It was just a few days after William and Morgan LeFay were reunited that William traveled to the Louisiana capitol to testify and tell his story to the legislative panel convened in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. William’s was the most compelling of all of the presentations, according to Russ Mead, general counsel for Best Friends, who also spoke on behalf of the animals left behind. Besides spectators, even members of the committee appeared visibly moved by William’s harrowing story.
On June 15, 2006, the Louisiana Pet Evacuation Bill was passed on the Senate and House floors and all the committees in between, and then it headed to Governor Kathleen Blanco for her signature. Even though the bill had no financing behind it, Blanco signed it into law. It was passed because of pressure from lobbyists and victims like William Morgan, and, in large part, because of a last-minute letter-writing campaign intended to pressure the governor to sign it into law. In September 2006, California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger signed a disaster-planning bill requiring officials to consider the needs of household pets, service animals, and livestock in an emergency. Then, on October 6, President George W. Bush signed the federal PETS Act, which requires local and state emergency preparedness authorities to include in their disaster evacuation plans accommodations for household companions and service animals. In a nutshell, the PETS Act recognizes that separating a human rescue-and-relief effort from an animal rescue operation is no longer acceptable to the American public.
Back in Louisiana, whether state legislators were influenced by William Morgan’s words or not, William drove home the point to lawmakers on that May afternoon: Never again should people be forced, during desperate circumstances, to leave their pets to fend for themselves.
3
The American Can Company
WHEN KIMBERLEE LAUER ARRIVED at Camp Tylertown about a week after the storm, it was for one purpose: to let rescuers know that dozens of pets were trapped inside loft-style apartments at the American Can Company complex in Mid-City.
Those stranded in the turn-of-the-century converted factory included Kimberlee’s Himalayan cat, Mr. Jezebel, and other animals. Kimberlee and two friends had left their three cats in a fourth-floor apartment in the high-rise building on New Orleans Avenue overlooking Bayou St. John. The American Can Company was surrounded by a seemingly endless wasteland of toxic water with animals inside homes just hanging on. The building was touted as hurricane proof. “It’s a hundred feet off the ground,” said Kimberlee, who had moved to New Orleans three years earlier. The problem was, no one could get to it, except by boat, and then only if they could get past the police and National Guard checkpoints. In that regard, residents were locked out.
Kimberlee didn’t even live in the building. She’d gone with Mr. Jezebel to a friend’s apartment in the American Can to ride out the storm. “We were on the roof, and you could see the whole city,” Kimberlee said. Because the hallways didn’t have windows and were completely dark, “everybody walked their dogs on the roofs, which connected the buildings. There were about two hundred people in the buildings. There was a little water in the street, and we figured we could drive out the next day.”
That was Monday. “The levee broke the next day, on Tuesday,” she continued, “and we said, ‘Oh, no. We’re stuck.’”
The day after the levees broke, the water was rising at the Orleans Avenue entrance to the apartments. The cars on Toulouse Street, at another entrance to the complex, were submerged. Medics and National Guard officers evacuated patients from the hospital next door. Kimberlee and others looked down from the American Can roof and watched the evacuation. “The medics had to push the patients in wheelchairs and on gurneys through the standing water,” she said. “It was difficult. The ground was uneven. The water was above the cars. We had two weeks’ worth of food and water. We figured we’d stay there till it was gone.”
After spending four days at the Can, Kimberlee and her friends Suzanne O’Neill and Cem Cakir, who had two cats between them, were ordered to evacuate by National Guard officers and were then taken by helicopter to the New Orleans airport, where they waited for a flight out. “When we got to the airport,” she said, “we discovered that some people had been allowed to bring their pets, and we were so jealous and angry that we weren’t allowed to take ours.”
They thought about nothing but their cats—Mr. Jezebel, Boo, and Raja. Despite what Kimberlee described as disorganization and chaos at the airport, they were each given MREs (military Meals Ready to Eat), and the restrooms and air-conditioning worked.
They called friends who had been evacuated, too. “A friend’s dogs were rescued by some Australian journalists, and another friend’s cat was rescued by someone who rode his bicycle into the city and then treaded water for twelve blocks. All these stories made us happy and desperately jealous at the same time. We just felt so powerless.
“We posted our info on all the pet sites we could find,” Kimberlee continued. “We even posted a reward on Craigslist, asking if someone could go into the Can and get the cats safely back to us.”
A friend’s father picked up the trio in Houston, where they were flown, and drove them to San Antonio. Suzanne, Boo’s person, learned that Best Friends was running an animal rescue center.
“Suzanne suggested one of us go there and plant ourselves with the rescue group in the hope that making direct contact would give us a better shot,” Kinberlee said. “So that’s what we did. I volunteered to be the one to drive to Tylertown that day.” From San Antonio, Kimberlee flew to Missouri to pick up her car from a tenant who had borrowed it to evacuate to Texas. Then Kimberlee headed for Tylertown, Mississippi. “I even picked up a stranded dog on the way, a Chow who was accepted at Tylertown.”
Kimberlee arrived at Camp Tylertown and told Paul Berry and Russ Mead her story. She also went to work, helping at base camp. “Kimberlee was one of the first volunteers to arrive here,” said Heidi Krupp with the St. Francis Sanctuary.
“Best Friends,” Kimberlee said, “was our best hope, because at that time, as far as we knew, they were the only rescue operation going into the flooded areas of New Orleans.”
Kimberlee’s plan worked. A team, which included volunteer Ken Ray and Best Friends rapid response members Ethan Gurney and Jeff Popowich, decided to go to the American Can Company on September 9 to rescue at least two dozen pets trapped in the apartment complex. Back at base camp, Kimberlee called her friends—and some other residents she’d gotten numbers from—to let them know that a team was going to try to rescue their pets.
It wasn’t easy getting there.
Because the complex was surrounded by water, there was no way to get close to it by car. The team took Interstate 10 to an off-ramp, and then got a boat into the water. Even so, it took a long time to reach the building. “The water wasn’t all that deep, and we had a person we met along the way guiding us there,” said rescuer Jeff Popowich. “We had to maneuver along the side of the road to keep in deeper water. And, of course, there were animals along the way and we were stopping and picking them up.”
They came across an empty boat floating in the floodwater, which they towed behind them and used later to transport some of the crated animals. Before they reached the Americ
an Can, they came across a woman who had been wading in the water, also trying to make her way to the building. She had keys to some of the apartments, which she gave to the rescuers. She pointed out the way out to the Can and then waited for them to return. When they boated back to her, she recognized a black Lab puppy in the boat. The dog was named Beauty, and the woman said she could give the puppy to his family, because she was in contact with them. The team returned the keys, and the woman took the puppy.
“We took two boats with us that day to the American Can Company,” said Ken Ray, who was with the team the first day. “There were two groups of us. We launched from the same place we had been launching from before. It took us about an hour and a half to get there, because there were a lot of downed wires, and the water had dropped a lot. That was the day we had to tote the boats one hundred fifty yards over land. We divided up and each took different floors.”
Kimberlee had given them a list of apartment numbers where she knew pets had been left. “We had gone through a lot of the list,” Ken said, “and we were just looking for notes on doors.”
By that point, it was getting dark. Kimberlee had warned them that looters might be in the building, or at least nearby. The team ran out of time and daylight. They didn’t make it to the fourth floor where Mr. Jezebel and Kimberlee’s friends’ cats were left. They headed back.
They ran into an island—what appeared to be a rise in the road—that was one hundred fifty yards long. “The boats were overloaded and had to be emptied to carry them over the rise in the road,” Ken said.
First they emptied the boats, carried them over the patch of dry road, and lifted them back into the water. Then, one by one, they carried the animals to the boats and reloaded them to continue motoring back to the transport van.
“We had to backtrack about four blocks to cross over,” Ken said.
As they got into the boats, “two Rottweilers on dry land came toward us,” Ken said. “They were friendly and healthy. These were 125-pound dogs. Those boats only hold 725 pounds each. I started doing the math. With the dogs, Jeff, Ethan, and me in the boat, I said, ‘This isn’t good. We’re at the limit. We’ll sink.’ The dogs looked as healthy as anything I’d seen down there, and they were friendly.”