Pet Evacuation Bill in Congress

by Aimee Amodio | More from this Blogger

26 May 2006 08:31 AM

Representative Tom Lantos from California has sponsored the Pet Evacuation and Transportation Standards Act, which was voted on by the House of Representatives on Monday. Lantos says that this piece of legislation was inspired by an image you may or may not remember from the Hurricane Katrina disaster: a little boy wailing as his dog Snowball was taken away from him.

The idea of the Pet Evacuation and Transportation Standards Act is to require that emergency preparedness officials at the state and local level include pets and service animals in all evacuation plans. Preparedness offices that fail to include animals in evacuation plans would not qualify for grants from the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

The Humane Society of the United States hopes this bill will ensure that people are never again forced to leave their pets behind to face imminent danger. A recent poll found that nearly half of American adults say they would refuse to evacuate if they could not bring their pets with them to safety. Lantos and the Congressional Friends of Animals Caucus feel that the lack of pet rescue plans put many pet owners in danger.

The Pet Evacuation and Transportation Standards Act was agreed to in the House of Representatives on Monday, May 22nd and now moves over to the Senate.

Over in the Senate, similar legislation has been introduced that would give FEMA the authority to grand funds to state and local agencies for animal preparedness projects. Building emergency shelters could be part of this plan. Louisiana is working on some emergency preparedness of its own -- requiring the state to come up with plans to transport and/or house pets in an evacuation. The state would need ten thousand cages (or more) for the animals.

Read more about emergency preparedness for you and your pets!

Florida is starting to prepare for the upcoming hurricane season by designating pet-friendly evacuation sites!

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Aimee is a fiction writer... dog lover... music lover...

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Sherry Holetzky (11404) 27 May 2006 10:06 AM

That is great, truly, but I believe that the lack of a coherent plan to rescue people should be the bigger focus. It's nice to save pets, but they couldn't even keep people from enduring grave suffering and in some cases death. If they can't save people, it won't do much good to save their pets. The whole issue needs to be re-evaluated and new plans need to be established. Cutting through the ridiculous mountains of red tape would be a good start.

Lisa P (24013) 03 Jun 2006 05:24 AM

I'm not one who depends on the government to take care of me or my family. We have two dogs now and I know my son would be devastated if we lost one, much less both. How could I possibly expect my son to endure the trials of disaster and displacement if his heart were breaking for his dearest friends who Mommy & Daddy left behind for certain death. We wouldn't do that to our son and we certainly wouldn't dream of doing it to our dogs. We have an evacuation plan and supplies/cash laid in for just such an occasion. No, if disaster is projected, we won't be foolish enough to think we can "ride it out" or "let the government make our decisions for us". We'll leave and we'll take our WHOLE family with us.