This Time, the Pets Evacuate Too

NEW ORLEANS - Among the most haunting images of Katrina were the animals: dogs swimming in flooded streets, cats abandoned on rooftops, owners who refused rescue rather than leave them behind. For Gustav, Louisiana had a new answer — the pets came too.

State officials set up pet-friendly shelters and ran animal transport alongside the human evacuation, the result of a 2006 federal law requiring disaster plans to account for household pets.

An estimated 250,000 animals were stranded by Katrina; only about 15,000 were rescued, and fewer than a fifth of those were reunited with owners. The images — and the story of a boy whose dog was taken from him at the Superdome — became a symbol of the storm's cruel arithmetic.

"People died in 2005 because they wouldn't leave their animals," said the state veterinarian coordinating the effort. "We are not asking anyone to make that choice again."

At the New Orleans evacuation center, families registered their pets at a separate desk; the animals traveled in carriers on climate-controlled trucks to shelters near the human ones.

Animal-welfare groups that fought pitched battles over rescues in 2005 praised the change. "Gustav will be the test case," a Humane Society official said. "So far, it's working."

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Associated Press writers contributed to this report.

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