By July 4, the city had made arrangements with the local school district to let us move the shelter to a school building that was mostly unused, but still being maintained. I toured the facility, along with city commissioner Pam Jones and her husband Bill, determining that it would make a very satisfactory indoor shelter. The first representatives of the Humane Society of the United States arrived late in the afternoon and evening and said there would be a large air conditioned trailer arriving later that we could use to move the animals the next day on July 5.

HSUS took over operation of the shelter just in time to relieve the private volunteer from Tulsa who had been leading us in the animals’ care since July 2. Theresa Turner had arrived on Monday with her 18 year old daughter. She had gone to help after Katrina and her learned experience helped us greatly those first 3 days. Exhausted, Theresa and daughter returned home after handing off the information we’d gathered about the animals.

Through the rest of July, we watched and helped as HSUS brought in wave after wave of paid staff and volunteers from all over the country. Considering the facility we had was not designed for animal care, the expertise of the HSUS people and the help of dozens of volunteers actually allowed us to do a pretty good job of caring for the animals.

By the end of the operation on July 30, we expect to have either returned to owners or adopted nearly all of the nearly 200 animals cared for over the period.

The flood and oil spill nearly destroyed the existing shelter which was undersized and outdated anyway. From the destruction has grown a ground swell of support for a new animal care facility of which we will all be proud. Support has been growing slowing for the past several years and this tragic event has served as the catalyst to bring us all together to build something much better than before.