Return To New Orleans
A Kinship Circle team navigates a complex route of food/water stations, many no longer served, in Upper 9th Wards East and West, Plaquemines Parish and Lakeview. Armed with maps (sometimes useless, with street signs still down) and hundreds of addresses, we record animal sightings and re-population status. Gutted homes and debris line streets. Personal stuff in one wall-less two-story seems untouched since residents fled. Here, animals find refuge in the shadows. A cat darts, then vanishes under rubble. A dog waits on dusty steps. Wherever people have returned, we offer bags of food for them to help feed animals. Some live in FEMA trailers parked outside wrecked homes. Others inhabit homes in various states of reconstruction. Photos (c) Kinship Circle, Hurricane Katrina Animal Aid
The white/black cat and an orange/brown tortie huddle beneath a wrecked home. They are too afraid to come out, so we gently nudge food and water trays under the structure. We also feed and document an orange tabby sighted on Elysian Fields. Photos (c) Kinship Circle. New Orleans, Hurricane Katrina Animal Aid
While feeding and documenting animals, we discover this pathetic pit bull, tethered on so little chain, he can barely get out from underneath a house. We call to file a cruelty report and urge prompt investigation of the dog, behind Israel BC Lot 1235 St. Bernard. A heavy padlock hangs from the dog's neck. A knotted chain, affixed to poles, seems as if it could choke him.
These black cats emerge from rubble and trash beneath a brick home at 2367 Urquhart. Starved, they gobble up our wet/dry food and look us straight in the eyes to ask for more.
