Katrina Rescue Update

Thursday
10:00 pm
Houston

The trucks are loaded and our stuff all packed. We continue to get updates that animals are dying and that in Pass Christian, the SMARTR shelter has become a bit of a central point for people to bring animals that need help. The staff there is hanging in, but will welcome some reinforcements. The original count of animals has grown some, but we understand is leveling off.
The latest is that FEMA has said they may allow the shelter and residents to stay on the land they already own if they can arrange to get a septic system put in. Not an insurmountable obstacle. Bids are being gathered, donations tallied and options explored.
For now, that makes our job easier as we can get more quickly to setting up the hospital and treating the sick without having to gather everyone up for a move by Monday.

The alarm will go off here at 4am and our away team will be on the road by 6. It is 398 miles from Houston to PC. Im getting emails as late as the last hour from team members who are trying frantically to book flights, arrange child care and appease spouses to join the FFL mission. The synergy is palpable and the team ever-growing.

To all of you who have joined the effort through this electronic community thank you. Your prayers, kind words, donations and offers of foster homes are deeply appreciated. As I write this, Muffin, my beautiful 15 yr old cat sits on the desk staring at me and trying not to fall asleep. She knows I am about to leave again. I look at her and see the ones who tonight are hungry, alone, sick or frightened. She and I know I must go.

One of my friends who helped load tonight gave me a card with this written inside:
"If I look at the masses, I will never act; if I look at one, I will." Mother Theresa

That is where our heads will be. The number of emails and stories about atrocities seems endless tonight and the problems seem overwhelming. It is easy at a time like this to get scattered and then paralyzed. But it is power to remember that in each animal is the whole world. In each kind act, the change ripples outward and nothing is the same. To all of you who say I can't do much-- a carrier, a small donation or a prayer--I have to tell you I believe every kind act is equally precious and equally powerful. Truth is, we can all do a lot. Nelson Mandela said the greatest human fear is not that we are powerless, it is that we are infinitely powerful.
Step by step, animal by animal, head down and focused we will make it better.

goodnight--talk soon,

salise