Hurricane Katrina

Sorrow And Hope Send Us Back To New Orleans


Please donate now, so Kinship Circle can not only feed animals while in NOLA, but also give funds/food to Animal Rescue New Orleans (ARNO), plus Katrina animal recovery efforts in Lakeview and Plaquemines.

Kinship Circle will service (many long unused) food/water stations and document animals sighted in the East/West sections of Upper 9th Ward, Lakeview, Plaquemines…

Landscapes have changed since Katrina. Residents rebuilding often want feeding to stop) Some areas have seen little recovery. Animal survivors and their offspring tend to roam near former homes. Reunions are still possible via documentation on feeding routes.

While in NOLA, we'll also help out at Animal Rescue New Orleans, plus transport animals for out-state adoptions. Please donate for the continued care of Katrina animal victims. Their suffering is not over. Thank you! Kinship Circle

Send CNN Katrina Animal Stories

Reply To: CNN iReport Rescue  ~  If you have a Katrina rescue story, share it with CNN. Thousands of pets were rescued after Hurricane Katrina. Many remain in shelters, waiting for adoption or for their families to be located. Do you know someone still searching for his or her lost pet? Send us your rescue stories, photos, videos. Some submissions may be selected for use on CNN.com, CNN television or other CNN programming, so by sending information you are agreeing to our terms of use.

Winter-Born NOLA Cats

1/17/07, Pam Leavy  ~  Kittens born in the dead of winter? Katrina effects continue. If winter-born kittens survive, they face hunger, illness, toxins, collapsing buildings, and homeless dogs who prey upon them. Cold weather itself claims lives. Although New Orleans has mild winters, occasional temps drop below freezing. All help welcome: adopt/foster, transport, donate, feed, trap. Since kitten season is over in most areas, out-state shelters may have space.

To Foster/Adopt Kittens, Contact:

Statewide Conference

Humane Society of Louisiana, in collaboration with Animal Rescue New Orleans, Coalition of Louisiana Animal Advocates, and Pet Aid hold the first annual statewide animal conference.

  • Saturday 1/20/07  ~  9:00am to 4:00pm, Denham Springs City Hall
    941 Government Street  /  Denham Springs, LA

  • To Register Send $15 To: Humane Society of Louisiana
    P.O. Box 740321  /  New Orleans, LA 70174
    * Check memo: Statewide Conference
    * Includes vegetarian lunch + snacks

  • Reserve Display: stopcruelty11@gmail.com

Three main areas addressed:
1. Response to animal cruelty complaints.
2. Making spay/neuter the norm.
3. Accelerating adoption rates.
An estimated 200 cats still roam in Lakeview, just one New Orleans area hard hit by Katrina in August 2005 626x317

Gift Of Life In Lakeview

An estimated 200 cats still roam in Lakeview, just one New Orleans area hard hit by Katrina in August 2005. These felines have struggled to survive since levees broke. Many were much-loved family members. For almost a year and a half, volunteers have done their best to fill stations with food/water. Still, this system is constantly challenged when donations for food run low, when kittens present more mouths to feed, when roaming dogs prey upon kittens and cats, and when countless other obstacles occur.

Every effort is made to reunite cats with their guardians. Jeanette Althans and Kathy Sweeney, ARNO volunteers who feed and trap in Lakeview, also photograph cats regularly. Remote Reunion Campaign volunteers currently work with them to determine potential matches. When matches, verified once cats can be trapped, are exact, some cats finally make it home. Katrina's destruction ranges for 650 sq. miles, with many hungry, homeless animals in grave need.

Foster And Forever Homes For Katrina Cats
  • Fosters Needed While We Search For Guardians: Foster friendly adult cats who survived Katrina.
  • Foster/Adopt Traumatized Cats: Many adult survivors were former family cats. With patience, love and a stable environment, they can be re-socialized.
  • Foster/Adopt Various Age Kittens: Kittens from 2 to 8 months need gentle attention until they adjust.
  • Contact: Jeanette Althans, 504-430-6477  /  Kathy Sweeney, 504-343-3683

Lakeview Residents: Contact Us…
  • If you can oversee a feeding station in your neighborhood or at your house. To ensure cats are fed regularly, we ask residents to assist with our food/water program.
  • If you recognize your cat, a friend or neighbor's cat, or if you can foster/adopt.
  • Contact: Jeanette Althans, 504-430-6477  /  Kathy Sweeney, 504-343-3683



Do You Recognize Any Of These Cats Seen In Lakeview?
Lakeview animals have struggled to survive since levees broke 591x293 Many roaming animals were much loved family members before Katrina struck 591x293 For a year and a half since Katrina, local volunteers have done their best to fill stations with food and water for left behind animals 591x293 Post Katrina animal aid is challenged when donations run low, constant newborns present more mouths to feed, dog packs prey upon kittens and cats 591x293 Every effort is made to reunite displaced Katrina animals with their original guardians 591x293
Seen in New Orleans, FEMA Evacution Plan: Run Bitch Run 492x468

The Ninth Ward Revisited

12/25/06 New York Times, By Bob Herbert  ~  Spike Lee, who has made a stunning six-hour documentary about New Orleans and Hurricane Katrina, was telling me the other day about his first visit to the city's Lower Ninth Ward, which was annihilated by the flood that followed the storm.

After more than a year his voice was still filled with a sense of horrified wonder. "To see it with your own eyes," he said, "and you're doing a 360-degree turn, and you see nothing but devastation. I wasn't born until 1957 but I automatically thought about Hiroshima or Nagasaki or Berlin after the war.

"It looked like someone had dropped a nuclear bomb. All brown, and the smell, stench. Horrible."

His words echoed the comments of a woman I had met on a recent New Orleans trip. She remembered standing in the Ninth Ward after waters had receded. "Everything was covered in brown crud," she said. "There was nothing alive. No birds. No dogs. No sound. And none of the fragrance usually associated with New Orleans, like jasmine and gardenias and sweet olives. It was just all death and destruction."

Said Mr. Lee: "You couldn't believe that this was the United States."

The film, produced by HBO and released in a boxed set of DVDs, is called When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts. It's Mr. Lee's best work, an informative, infuriating and heartbreaking record of a cataclysmic historical event, the loss of a great American city.

What boggles the mind now is the way the nation seems to take this loss in stride. Much of New Orleans is still a ruin. More than half its population is gone and an enormous percentage still in town are suffering. As Mr. Lee noted, the public face of the city is to some extent a deceptive feel-good story. The Superdome, a chamber of horrors during the flood, has been made new again. And the city's football team, the Saints, is sprinting into the National Football League playoffs.

"They spent money on the Superdome. You can get drunk in the French Quarter again, and some conventions are coming back," Mr. Lee said, "so people say that everything's O.K. But that's a lie. They need to stop this focus on downtown and the Superdome because it does a disservice to all still in very deep trouble. They need to get cameras out of the French Quarter and go to New Orleans East, or the Lower Ninth Ward. Or St. Bernard Parish. You'll see that everything is not O.K."

Vast acreages of ruined homes and staggering amounts of garbage and filth still burden the city. Scores of thousands of people remain jobless and homeless. The public schools that are open, for the most part, are a scandal. And the mental health situation, for the people in New Orleans and evacuees scattered across the rest of the U.S., is yet another burgeoning tragedy.

When the Levees Broke has a fifth act, only recently completed, in which people reflect on what has happened since the storm. Wynton Marsalis, ordinarily the mildest of individuals, looks into the camera with an expression of anger and deep disgust. "What is the government doing?" he asks. "They're trying to figure out how to hand out contracts. How to lower the minimum wage so the subcontractors can make all the money. Steal money from me and you, man. We're paying taxes, you understand what I'm saying?"

For most of America, Katrina is an old story. In Mr. Lee's words, people have "Katrina fatigue." They're not much interested in how the levees have only been patched up to pre-Katrina levels of safety, or how insurance companies have ripped off thousands upon thousands of hard-working homeowners who are now destitute, or how, as USA Today reported, "One $7.5 billion Louisiana program to help people rebuild or relocate has put money in the hands of just 87 of the 89,403 homeowners who applied."

Other matters vie for attention. The war in Iraq is going badly. Donald Trump and Rosie O'Donnell are feuding. And, it's Christmas. "You know how Americans are," Mr. Lee said. "We're on to the next thing."
A gold Lab and Doxie dog are among ARNO sweetie pies who need forever homes 333x468

ARNO Sweeties Need Homes

Animal Rescue New Orleans (ARNO) needs foster homes to give animals a safe, loving environment until transport, reunion and adoption can be arranged. Help us save animals on the streets since Katrina, plus rescue animals from kill shelters. There is a drastic rise in Katrina surrenders, as many can't find new homes that allow pets.

Adopt From ARNO
Petfinder  ■  Save-A-Pet

Mattie is a great little dog who vanished after the car he was in was stolen from the University City Loop in St Louis 333x463

Mattie, Stolen In St. Louis, MO

Reply To: Audry aud1975@yahoo.com
whereintheworldismattie

1/30/07  ~  Mattie is a great little dog who vanished inside Tom and Alice Matthews' car when it was stolen 11/7/06. Visiting St. Louis from Michigan, Tom and Alice were window shopping in the University City Loop at the time. If you can volunteer to find Mattie or have information, email: whereintheworldismattie

Kinship Circle View  ~  Mattie is not "lost." Mattie was stolen, and since his horror began in St. Louis, MO, this beautiful dog could be anywhere in the country by now. Missouri is the nation's number one pet-theft state. A lucrative underground sends stolen animals from bunchers to dealers to research laboratories. Once tagged for experimentation, an animal is gone forever. All "specimens" are killed when experiments end. Let's hope Mattie did not end up with scumbag pet-theft dealers or experimenters.

Animal Rescue After Katrina

Donate To NOLA Independent Rescue
Key NOLA rescuers, Katrina evacuees themselves, pay for trap-neuter-release (TNR), medical, adopt/transport, rescue, food/water.

ARNO & Independents
Traci Kestler, 504-975-5971
P.O. Box 55284  /  Metairie, LA 70055-5284
ARFL.petfinder.com

Lakeview Cats Roaming
Kathy Sweeney
Jeanette Althans, 504-734-7771
333 Vinet Ave  /  Jefferson, LA 70121

Plaquemines Cat Action Team
Ramona Billot, 504-606-3116
102 A Omega  /  Belle Chase, LA 70037

Donate Via Kinship Circle
Kinship Circle, a 501c3 nonprofit charity, has arranged to accept donations on behalf of NOLA rescuers listed above.

DONATE TO ANIMAL DISASTER FUND
Donate Online
Donate By Mail
Kinship Circle Disaster Aid Fund
7380 Kingsbury Blvd
St. Louis, MO 63130
State in enclosed note or check memo which NOLA rescuer your donation should go to.

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