Temporary Home for the Animals

For Pet Owners Left Homeless by Hurricane, a Temporary Home for the Animals
LIZ ROBBINS
November 18, 2012
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/19/nyregion/temporary-shelter-opens-for-pets-of-owners-displaced-by-hurricane-sandy.html

Brendan Scott flicked his fingers though the cage to reassure Raven, his 7-year-old black cat. With his parents standing behind him, Brendan, 15, was trying not to cry.

Two puppies that were displaced from the Rockaways play in their cage.

“He’s like a little brother,” he said, softly, of Raven. The cat and his orange companion in the next cage, Haley, had been bouncing from home to home — as their owners had — since Hurricane Sandy ravaged the family’s house in Broad Channel, Queens.

On Sunday, Brendan and his parents, Ray and Michelle Scott, were among dozens of people who left their pets behind at another temporary home, a 20,000-square-foot emergency boarding center that opened over the weekend in a vacant warehouse in Ocean Hill, Brooklyn.

Run with affectionate precision by a team of disaster specialists from the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, the shelter housed 137 animals by Sunday evening and was expected to house a few hundred, if not more, before the week was out. The center can accommodate up to 700 animals, which are permitted to stay for 30 days free of charge, with full veterinary care, until their owners can reclaim them.

“At least I know they’re safe, that’s what matters,” Ray Scott said at the entrance. Brendan added: “I’m going to come every weekend to visit.”

As the weeks of anxious uncertainty drag on for the tens of thousands of New Yorkers left homeless by the storm, pet owners have been making heart-wrenching decisions about what to do with their animals.

Jim Buonamano, 73, spent several bitter nights sleeping in his flooded, powerless home in Belle Harbor, Queens, while taking care of April, a 6-year-old white German shepherd, and Bella, a 2-year-old pit bull. He contacted the city’s pet hot line after the storm, and two weeks later help arrived.

On Sunday, a man and a woman from Manhattan, who simply showed up in the Rockaways with a station wagon and a desire to volunteer, had been directed to deliver April and Mr. Buonamano to the Brooklyn shelter. Then they all went back for Bella.

“I’d rather she be someplace warm, even if I don’t see her for a month,” said Mr. Buonamano, who is now staying with a brother. “She could use a bath, since she was in flood water, too.”

April’s arrival highlighted the effort, involving nonprofit organizations, private shelter operators, celebrity donors, veterinarians and unaffiliated volunteers, to mitigate the suffering of both humans and animals.

“The silver lining of a disaster is that some of these animals have never seen a veterinarian, or it had been a while,” said Matt Bershadker, the senior vice president of the A.S.P.C.A.’s anti-cruelty group, which oversees field investigations.

Veterinarians from New York and others from around the country examined every animal brought in. They were aided by animal behaviorists. Taped to the cage of a Rottweiler mix was a warning for handlers: “Very Scared.”

Tim Rickey, the A.S.P.C.A.’s senior director of the shelter, said: “They go through much worse than humans because they don’t understand it.”

After nearly two weeks of negotiations, the warehouse’s landlord agreed on a rent of $20,000 a month, A.S.P.C.A. officials said, adding that a $500,000 donation from the celebrity chef Rachael Ray, who also has contributed supplies from her line of pet food, helped defray some costs.

Forty-four cats and dogs were delivered from a Sean Casey Animal Rescue emergency shelter in Sunset Park, Brooklyn, on Sunday, with their transport overseen by the Mayor’s Alliance for NYC’s Animals, an animal welfare charity that is not affiliated with the city.

There were also 48 animals whose owners had yet to be found, brought in from shelters run by Animal Care and Control from around the city. The facilities of that organization, which has a contract with the city to pick up strays, are already overcrowded. The organization has come under criticism in the past because it euthanizes some unwanted animals. No animals affected by Hurricane Sandy were on that list, said Richard Gentles, a spokesman for the organization.

The animals who arrived without owners were to be kept in a quarantined section of the warehouse, because they could have been exposed to disease, Mr. Bershadker said.

The Mayor’s Alliance, through its Wheels of Hope program, has spent several days pleading with owners to put their pets in the new A.S.P.C.A. center as they leave evacuation centers.

When the Queens College evacuation center closed over the weekend, an older man staying there with his fuzzy Pomeranian, Buddy, pleaded for his pet not to be sent to the A.S.P.C.A. “He said, ‘I lost everything in this hurricane,’ ” Debbie Fierro of the Mayor’s Alliance recalled. “’The only thing I have is my dog.”

Sharon Hunter, 51, was even more adamant that she stay with her 2-year-old ferret, Trouble.

Ms. Hunter had ridden out the storm with Trouble and her 10-year-old daughter, Elizabeth, on the seventh floor of a New York City Housing Authority building in the Rockaways. With no heat and electricity, she agreed to leave a week later only because she could take the ferret to the Queens College emergency shelter.

After nearly two weeks, Ms. Hunter said, shelter officials enticed her away with a free hotel room in Manhattan, but only on the condition that the ferret went to the shelter in Brooklyn. Ms. Hunter said she resisted, but exhaustion and the need for privacy won out Saturday night. She ended up at the Carlton Hotel, on Madison Avenue.

Trouble was enjoying the semi-privacy of a wood-paneled office on Sunday, keeping company with a parakeet and a rabbit, each in its cage.

A version of this article appeared in print on November 19, 2012, on page A14 of the New York edition with the headline: For Pet Owners Left Homeless by Hurricane, a Temporary Home for the Animals.

‘Frankenstorm’ and creating monsters

Mindy Lubber
OCTOBER 31, 2012
http://bostonglobe.com/opinion/2012/10/31/frankenstorm-and-creating-monsters/KI6a9sWQZ60sHuPS1MF2PJ/story.html

It’s déjà vu all over again: a huge chunk of the nation is reeling from extreme weather – in this case, the devastation wrought by Hurricane Sandy, the so-called “Frankenstorm.”

Scientists tell us you can’t blame any one weather event on climate change. But they do say warmer water energizes tropical storms like Sandy. And they say a warming world puts more moisture in the atmosphere, which tends to bring greater rainfall totals when heavy weather strikes. And they point out that storm surges like the ones we’ve seen this week do more damage when sea levels are already elevated before the storm strikes.

Keep in mind that all three of these climate-related trends — rising sea surface temperatures, global average temperatures, and sea levels — are all expected to continue because of climate change.

Now consider what that means for the insurance industry, and the families and businesses across America who rely on insurance as a bulwark against financial ruin. Consider that weather disasters in 2011 alone led to $32 billion in insured losses in the United States. And consider that those losses included historic heat, widespread drought and wildfires, and Mississippi flooding — all of which, scientists say, are previews of disasters likely to become more common in a warming world.

At Ceres, we believe insurance companies and regulators would be foolish to ignore the truth: As the Earth heats up, the odds of severe weather events increase, and the risks of covering vulnerable communities rise, as well. The abnormal is becoming the new normal, and the insurance industry needs to face facts.

Our new report, “Stormy Future for US Property and Casualty Insurers: The Growing Costs and Risks of Extreme Weather Events,” lays out a plan of action for insurance companies, regulators and investors to deal with the increasing risks. And it shows how the insurance sector can actually help our country adapt to climate change, and help the world curb the worst effects of global warming.

The report calls for insurance companies to keep up with the science, take climate trends into account, and evaluate and price risks accordingly. It calls for regulators to follow the lead of insurance commissioners in New York, California and Washington State, who require major insurance companies to disclose their exposure to climate-related risks. And it advises investors and ratings agencies to keep climate risks in mind when assessing insurance companies’ financial strength.

Beyond facing up to the realities of a changing climate, America’s insurance sector can play an important role in helping the nation adapt. There is plenty of precedent. For example, by making insurance contingent on building standards, insurance companies have helped minimize the damage from fires and earthquakes. And by offering cheaper rates for cars equipped with air bags and other safety features, insurers have encouraged automobile safety.

In a similar way, the report says, standards for insurability and insurance rate incentives for smart building can help steer land-use planning decisions, infrastructure design, and building codes in ways that makes communities less vulnerable to disaster and more resilient when catastrophe strikes.

Insurers can also get a better handle on their climate change exposure by supporting research into national and regional forecasting of severe weather patterns. They can even offer products and services that incentivize clean, efficient energy, in order to lessen the burning of fossil fuels and address the root cause of climate change.

Leading insurers and re-insurers are already addressing their risk from a changing climate and increasing severe weather. The rest of the insurance sector should follow suit.

A clear-eyed look at the risks inherent in a warming world — and at what can be done to mitigate those risks — makes for a stronger insurance industry, a more resilient economy, and a better-prepared region and nation.

Mindy Lubber is president of Ceres, a Boston-based nonprofit organization mobilizing business leadership on sustainability challenges. Details of the “Stormy Future’’ report can be found at:

http://www.ceres.org/press/press-releases/u.s.-insurance-companies-vulnerable-to-extreme-weather-changing-climate