CULTIVATING COMPASSION
Keeping Families Together: Caring for Carolina Evacuees and Their Companion Animals in the Aftermath of Hurricane Helene BY KELLY JOHNSTON; EDITED BY CAM MACQUEEN
On the morning of Thursday, September 26th, my aunt Resa in Asheville, North Carolina, sent me an online photo of serious flooding in Biltmore Village near her home. This message came 13 hours before Hurricane Helene made landfall in Florida as a Category 4 hurricane. Two days later, I would arrive in Asheville to help. I work as a disaster responder for the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW, www.ifaw.org). For decades, IFAW has helped com - munities prepare for, respond to, and recover from disasters. People and animals live together in communities all over the globe and disas- ters spare no species. Hurricane Helene made landfall in Florida and continued northwest lashing through Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Virginia causing catastrophic damage and taking more than 230 human lives . Western North Carolina was particularly hard hit with roughly half of the fatalities happening in the Tar Heel state. The flooding obliterated homes, toppled buildings, and destroyed roads. Some residents were able to evacuate on their own while others were brought to safety by the heroic efforts of others. IFAW is a founding member of the National Animal Rescue and Sheltering Coalition (NARSC) which was created after Hurricane Ka - trina to help coordinate the animal-related needs of storm survivors in the disaster cycle. North Carolina called upon NARSC — and NARSC called IFAW — for assistance in setting up and running a co-located shelter at the Western North Carolina Agricultural Center. I was hon-
ored to deploy during this unprecedented time. I set out for Asheville early Saturday morning on September 28th. My mom was born and raised in Walnut, NC, in Madison County. Vis - iting this region for decades, I never would have imagined the damage and devastation I saw firsthand that came from a hurricane that made continued on page 28 IFAW Responder, Michelle Lombas, and local veterinarian, Dr. Cat Ashe of the Street Dog Coalition- Asheville, care for Bubbles. Dr. Ashe’s veterinary clinic in Swannanoa was washed away by flood waters.
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