8 State Hurricane Kate

I’m getting ready to fly back to New Orleans for the memorial service on Friday, the 3rd anniversary of Hurricane Katrina. The Humane Society of Louisiana will be unveiling a statue in memory of the animals that were lost during and after Katrina. It’s been an unsettling week. First Hurricane Fay hovered over Florida, dropping torrential rains and causing flooding in many areas. At the LA-SPCA near New Orleans, they were getting ready to sleep at the shelter in case Fay came that way and the streets became flooded. But Fay took another route and it looks like she’ll miss Louisiana. I thought we’d dodged the bullet, but when I called Deedra at Canine Culture today, she told me that she was making evacuation plans. It seems that Hurricane Gustav is on the heels of Fay and may head up the Gulf Coast. Here we go again. I have a flight in to NOLA on Thursday morning and am scheduled to fly out on Sunday afternoon. The current projected path of Gustav has it arriving in the Gulf Coast on Monday morning, probably time for me to get out and get home. So, do I leave, or stay to help? Will I have the opportunity to help with evacuations and still catch my flight? Only time will tell. Living in hurricane alley this time of year would be too nerve-wracking for me!

Today I also received a message from Jillian of BARK in Alexandria, Louisiana. Her dad found a cattle dog on the side of the road in Louisiana. He took her in and they named her Kate in honor of 8 State Kate. They think this blue girl is about 7 years old and the vet told her that she is heartworm positive and probably about 5 weeks pregnant. Most likely nobody is looking for her, but I’ll ask if she has and ID or microchip. I doubt he would have taken her  with him if he thought she had a home. Jillian asked me if I would like to take this Kate home with me, or at least visit the shelter. She knows that I’ll be in NOLA this week, so thought she’d mention the dog to me. I’m not sure I can make it up to Alexandria, which is quite a drive from NOLA. But we’ll see. BARK will take good care of this girl if I can’t, and I can post her to the cattle dog lists and maybe help cover her vets costs even if I don’t go up to Alexandria. This all feels so much like 3 years ago. I hope that, at least with respect to the hurricane, things go differently!