Where I live I don’t have to worry much about earthquakes or hurricanes, but we do have tornados and occasional flooding in this area. Our plan of action is not the best when it comes to the emergencies that weather can bring. As I have said before we have 4 cats and have you ever tried to round up cats? and even when you do catch them, putting them in a carrier is a nightmare. Our dogs are easy, and they basically will follow us where ever we go. After reading about the Gustav hurricane I was worried about how the animals faired in that situation since during Katrina it was a horror story for everyone in the area and so many people were scrambling to get out alive that many animals suffered. I like to read National Geographic a lot and I came across Gustav Pet Evacuations Show Katrina Lessons Learned, which talks about how everyone has now developed a working game plan on how to evacuate pets before disaster hits. We are not fortunate here as tornados usually do not give much warning before they strike, so I just hope that when the time comes my plan of actions works as well as what they have established in New Orleans.
Here are a couple ideas from the Red Cross on how to evacuate when you are a pet owner
