24 / Chapter 1
by September 3, about twenty thousand people had sought shel-
ter there, amid violence and unsanitary conditions. Carlos and Dale
Menendez were among them. The two had stayed in their home
with their white German shepherd, Lily. They were initially relieved
that the city had been spared a direct hit by the hurricane. When
their home fl ooded, they held out for three days before being res-
cued in a boat. Along with Lily, they were taken to a holding area
where they waited for a bus that would take them to a location that,
although unclear, mattered little at the time. After seven hours, the
bus arrived. They begged the driver to allow Lily on board, and her
sweet disposition helped persuade him. They ended up at the Con-
vention Center, where they would spend the next fi ve days without
food or water. When the National Guard helicopters fi nally arrived,
Dale was so weak they placed her on a stretcher for transportation.
As the couple was preparing for evacuation, the National Guards-
men refused to take Lily. As the LA/SPCA recorded the story:
The National Guard tells the family that they can’t take Lily.
If you keep Lily you can’t be rescued. Either she stays or you
don’t go. They plead with the guardsmen to take Lily. They
can’t imagine leaving her behind. But of course their pleas
go unanswered. Relaying their experience even now, Dale
can hardly bear to recount it. Everyday she’s haunted with
the recurring image of hearing her own cries and screams as
she lay on a stretcher, seeing Lily released by the guardsmen
and running away from the Convention Center, alone and
confused. “Oh my God, I just about lost it,” Dale recalls.^13A far more shocking story comes from St. Bernard Parish. Sev-
eral residents evacuated or were rescued from their homes and
took refuge in three local schools. Many had done as instructed
by taking their companion animals with them. Jodi Jones, a resi-
dent of St. Bernard Parish, later explained, “We thought we were
doing a good thing by taking our animals to the school.” However,
when residents were evacuated from the schools in early Septem-
ber, “the rules changed,” as CNN’s Anderson Cooper put it. Jones