New Photos and Video: Animal Rescues in Deserted Areas Post–Hurricane Florence

For Immediate Release:
September 20, 2018

Contact:
Megan Wiltsie 202-483-7382

This week, PETA’s rescue team has been in North Carolina helping animals in the aftermath of Hurricane Florence. So far, the group—and its boat—has rescued a slew of dogs, cats, and even chickens from the floodwaters.

Photographs and video footage of some of the rescues are available for download, including the following:

• PETA’s team found dogs and chickens trapped in pens and unable to escape the high floodwaters, and some chickens had already died. The team moved the surviving chickens to higher ground, and the dogs were taken indoors.
• Firefighters spotted PETA’s boat and asked for help rescuing a dog named Max, who had been left inside his home, which flooded. His family was on the back of the fire truck and watched as PETA’s team and firefighters waded through waist-deep waters to rescue Max, who had climbed to safety on top of the kitchen counter. He was reunited with them.
• A scared dog had been left on the porch of a home in a flooded neighborhood with nowhere to go and no way to escape the rising floodwaters. PETA’s team coaxed him safely onto their boat.
• A kitten was found alone, clinging to a railing that was floating in the waist-deep floodwaters. The rescue team heard him crying and followed his calls.
• A dog who appeared to be painfully thin and have a skin infection was left inside a house that had flooded. A kind man who lives nearby alerted PETA’s team to his plight and assisted them in opening a window and getting the dog to safety.
• After rescuing a cat whom they found on a porch—surrounded by water, with nowhere to go and unable to escape—PETA’s team heard meowing from the flooded woods behind the house. They made their way through woods and briars in neck-deep water. They spotted a kitten in a tree, and as he came toward them, he fell into the water. But a team member quickly scooped him up and got him safely onto the boat.
• A member of PETA’s team spotted a dog swimming in a fenced-in backyard with water up to his neck. The team entered the yard through the chain-link fence to get the dog, since named Sebastian, to safety.

Before Hurricane Florence hit, PETA’s rescue team made phone calls and went door to door to encourage people to keep their animals inside and take their animals with them if they must evacuate, thereby saving hundreds from being left behind. One man who planned on evacuating and leaving a dog named James tied up outside, gave him to PETA, and he is now being fostered by a PETA staffer. Ace is another dog PETA rescued before the storm. He was chained up outside, and his owners said that since they had just remodeled their house, they would not bring him inside during the hurricane. They gave him to PETA, which took him to the Norfolk SPCA.

PETA is still helping animals in North Carolina and asks that anyone with solid information about animals who need help around Lumberton, Elizabethtown, Pembroke, Wallace, Burgaw, or related areas email [email protected] or tweet details to @PETA.