Katrina Pet Air Lift

Airlift October 5, 2005 

With so many pets to shelter keeping them all local is not possible. as a result, no kill shelters and sanctuaries around the country have made room for them. The animals have been shipped by both air conditioned tractor trailer and air plane. I had the opportunity to participate in 2 air lifts, one in a Continental Airlines 737 passenger plane and one in a DC9 Cargo Plane. Each air lift carried around 100 dogs and cats.

The first air lift containing about 80 dogs and 20 cats left New Orleans air port on October 5, 2005 with animals that Pasado Safe Haven had been sheltering in a make shift shelter on a farm in Raceland, LA. The animals started to get ready about 3am for the journey to Portland, OR. Pasado Safe Haven also provided most of the manpower for the airlift transport. They were transported to the airport in cages loaded in a horse trailer, van and the GMC pickup truck I was driving.

It was around 9am when our caravan made it to the airport to start loading the plane. We started weighing the animals and staging them to be loaded in the plane. Most of the larger dogs were loaded under the plane in the cargo area with the cats and smaller dogs loaded in the passenger compartment.

October 10, 2005 Airlift evacuation of the remaining pets from Lamar Dixon Expo Center, mostly hard to place Pitt Bulls.

No Animal Left Behind!

Finding homes for 100 animals from two emergency shelters is a task in its self, but when 36 of the 40 coming from one facility are Pitt Bulls it adds an additional challenge as most places will not accept the animals, especially without in-depth temperament testing. David Meyers (read David's blog at

http://saveapetkatrinarescue.blogspot.com/ for the full story of his efforts) and Pia Salk, two of the leaders of our group of volunteers, concerned that these remaining pets would be euthanized with out our help, told the powers that be that we had homes for all of the Pitt Bulls. Knowing that unless he made other arrangements, David had just volunteered his garage as an emergency shelter for these unplaced animals, he worked tirelessly through the holiday weekend to find not only homes but transpiration as well. Well he did it and on October 10, 2005 we loaded the remaining 40 dogs from Lamar Dixon Expo Center (The largest animal shelter ever created in the US if only open for a short time) and 60 more from a minimum security correctional facility that had created a animal shelter there (whose inmates took excellent care of the animals) for their journey to California.  

We started loading the animals at 5am onto Tractor Trailers for their journey first to Baton Rough airport to be loaded on a DC9 Cargo Plane which would then take them across the country on to Los Angeles's LAX international airport. Our group of volunteers together with other HSUS volunteers and staff and the National Guard worked together to walk, cage and load these animals for the trip.  

At 9:30 am the DC9 rolled in and we began loading it for the transport to California. Not having a luggage belt to load the animals, each crate had to be lifted onto the aircraft manually. Everyone worked to get these animals on, stacking them 2 high, squeezing every bit of room out of the aircraft. Finally all the dogs had been loaded on and we just had the cats left to load. Knowing that these animals that these animals had not only survived 2 hurricanes, but near dehydration and starvation made it all the more important that these animals get to a safe place. No animal left behind, that was the goal, a goal that we meet thanks to all the volunteers and donors who made this airlift a success.