Introduction
This year marks the 10th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, which as we all know, slammed into the Gulf Coast at the end of August, 2005. Between the storm and the subsequent levee failure in New Orleans, the result was the costliest natural disaster and one of the five deadliest hurricanes in U.S. History. That is the big picture, the sound-bite overview. But we also know that there are thousands of smaller stories. This is one of those stories. In the wake of that disaster, several friends and I organized an effort to send local volunteers to assist the animal rescue and shelter operations in the area – they were overwhelmed with abandoned and starving animals and had reached out across the country for help. We ended up sending nearly a dozen volunteers over a 2-month period.
Our primary resource for support was The Bay Team membership. We received substantial donations of both cash and airline miles to help pay expenses of the volunteers. I stayed home and handled the fundraising and logistics, and also sent out regular updates by e-mail for the benefit of the people who were supporting the effort. The experience was so powerful for the volunteers who traveled to New Orleans that some of them weren’t able to read the updates until long after they returned. In honor of the 10th anniversary of the disaster, I am re-posting all of the e-mail updates that were sent during that time.
I have made very few edits in order to preserve the rawness that resulted from the near-realtime posting of information in the originals. I have, however, inserted some additional information for clarity and have enhanced the text with photos that I received from the volunteers.
Each entry links to the next – please start here: Lamar-Dixon Chronicles: The Story Begins.
AgilePooch Diaries 