For our nation, for our humane centers, for our individual good hearted souls – Katrina was the ultimate challenge - something completely new - a national disaster without predecessor or peer. Yes, there are lessons to be learned. Every mistake should be looked on as an opportunity to save some poor pet in during a future disaster. Heartbreaking but valuable lessons were learned during Hurricane Katrina. Lack of coordination, lack of organization, lack of trained manpower were all factors that cost lives and money unnecessarily. MuttShack Animal Rescue were pioneer volunteers that pulled a mostly rag-tag crowd of well meaning amateurs and professionals together to form an effective team of dedicated people with some spectacular success statistics. They were so effective in fact that they were recognized by Emergency Management Services and state authorities as the organization to turn to for help in formulating programs for training animal rescuers, so that spontaneous volunteers could be better utilized in future.
In the State of Louisiana, animal rescue organizations are affiliating with local parishes under Memoranda of Understanding so as to be most effective under an Incident Command Structure. Volunteers must be affiliated with a rescue group in order to deploy into the disaster area and each rescue group shares the responsibility to get their volunteers fully trained. In order to respond more effectively during a disaster, many states are demanding a minimum standard of preparedness and training and animal rescuers took up that responsibility even before the passage of new State and Federal Pet Evacuation Laws.
"Speaking a common language with other disaster responders and knowing the incident command structure is critical" said Amanda St John, Founder of MuttShack Animal Rescue. "We need to respond in a unified and responsible manner. The animals deserve that. Katrina taught us that random uncoordinated action does not work effectively and we have learned some valuable lessons from that time." She added.
MuttShack Animal Rescue offers free online training utilizing a combination of FEMA classes and online White Papers and lectures as coursework for the MuttShack Animal Rescue First Responder Certificate. While certain FEMA classes are already mandatory for participation in animal rescue in the State of Louisiana, MuttShack's First Responder Certification is more comprehensive, literally a mini-university degree in response training. Go to http://www.muttshack.org to sign up for the course and equip yourself for one of the most gratifying activities and contributions to handling a disaster scenario. Can't come? support the rescuers and rescue efforts.
