Companion Animals / 37with his or her animals avoids being a villain in one construction
but becomes a villain later, in having to surrender the animals to
a shelter.
Another factor that has been associated with evacuation fail-
ure is the lack of transportation. One researcher points out that
“the major obstacles to evacuating pets appear to be logistic, result-
ing from an inability to transport pets.”^33 After Katrina, people
who owned vehicles found their cars and trucks useless when fl ood
waters rose too high. The evacuation of New Orleans also high-
lighted the diffi culties faced by people who rely on public trans-
portation. At the time, animals were not allowed on buses or other
public vehicles. New Orleans has since modifi ed disaster plans to
allow animals in carriers.
Guardians such as Jodi Jones and Carlos and Dale Menendez,
who did the right thing and evacuated with their dogs, learned that
the villains were the National Guard and local law enforcement.
Acting on ill-advised policy to “save people, not animals,” the mil-
itary and other rescuers became the villains and then complicated
the ensuing response by letting animals run free, as the National
Guard had done with the Menendezes’ dog, Lily. These responders
made evacuees’ lives more stressful and also ensured the need for
a subsequent animal rescue operation of unprecedented size and
complexity.
Research has already documented that leaving a companion ani-
mal behind in a disaster can pose additional health risks to evacu-
ees already under serious strain. For example, following a tornado
that struck West Lafayette, Indiana, in 1994, evacuees exhibited
signs of psychological distress and medically unexplained physi-
cal symptoms from uncertainty over the safety and whereabouts of
their companion animals.^34 Until Katrina, we knew nothing about
the emotional and psychological consequences of being physically
forced to leave an animal behind. In my work at the shelter facil-
ity for animals rescued out of New Orleans, I saw distraught guard-
ians spending entire days searching the rows of kennels for their
dogs. The few reunions I witnessed were beyond joyful on the parts