Dear Einstein,

She said being inside the storm sounded like she was sitting inside a jet engine. What’s a jet? And what if we have a hurricane here at home? I don’t want to starve like she did. I thought I could trust my people to take care of me. Now I’m scared.

Stormy from Yakima

Dear Stormy,

I have good news and bad news. You don’t have to worry much about hurricanes since you don’t live near a coast. The bad news is: there’s a whole bunch of other things to worry about like earthquakes, wildfires, floods, power outages, tornadoes, chemical spills and who knows what wacko terrorists might cook up someday. That makes it all the more important that your humans plan ahead.

I saw those poor Katrina cats and dogs on television, too. In an emergency I my human mom wouldn’t leave me behind and I bet neither would yours. Your new friend, along with thousands of other cats and dogs were the victims of bureaucracy. My sources tell me that government types told the people they couldn’t take their cats and dogs with them. A lot of brave souls suffered through the hurricane because they wouldn’t leave us furry-types behind. That no-pets evacuation policy snuffed out four-footed and human lives, alike. Cats and dogs were left in homes to starve to death. Did you know some visually-challenged humans actually had to leave their Seeing Eye Dogs behind?

That hurricane hit a big area of the gulf coast. Smart guys at the ASPCA national office guess that before the hurricane 230,000 cats and 205,000 dogs lived in that area. Note to dogs: there were a lot more cats than pooches. Those ASPCA guys don’t know how many people took pets with them or how many pets were left behind. As of early December, about 15,000 pets had been rescued. Of those, only 360 had family reunions to celebrate. So if you get left behind, it’s bad news.

But this won’t happen again if Former Speaker of the House of Representatives, Newt Gingrich has his way. I spoke to Mr. Newt the other day and he said humans have to get involved to prevent this. He’s pretty smart for a human, and he’s the founder of the Center for Health Transformation (CHT). He says there’s definitely a place in an evacuation for pets. His CHT think tank helps speed up adoption of solutions and policies for better health and more choices at lower cost. He says cats and dogs are important to people’s health.

“Such tragic scenes were common in the aftermath of Katrina, as evacuees were
forced to leave behind their animal companions,” Mr. Newt said. “The emotional impact of being forced to abandon forever one’s cherished “best friend” is likely to be both tramatic and long-term. It’s something we can’t ignore.”

He added, “Many of the survivors of Katrina have lost their homes, their jobs and, in many cases, their loved ones. It’s time for us to step in to ensure that those who have lost everything are not forced, in their darkest and most desperate moments, to abandon their pets as well.”

Hear, hear, Mr. Speaker. I couldn’t have said I better myself.

“People at the grassroots level can make a difference when it comes to changing public policies,” he told your humble columnist.

Mr. Newt tells me some pet-loving representative from California named Tom Lantos introduced the Pet Evacuation Transportation Standards (PETS) Act. For cats who aren’t into politics, that means if it’s passed, during a disaster or an emergency, state and local emergency preparedness plans will have to consider the needs of people with pets.

Since we kitties (and puppies) don’t have opposable thumbs and we’re not great with a (computer) mouse, it’s going to be up to the humans to do something about this. They have to use their phones or their computer keyboards to contact their representative to get this thing passed.

“(People) should contact their members of congress and tell them to support Representative Lantos’ bill,” Gingrich said. “Ask them to cosponsor the bill. There’s no reason it can’t be passed early this year.”

Newt grew up with cats, so he likes us. He knows first-hand the positive affect pets can have on people.

“In emergencies like Katrina, we need to have a plan that allows pets to be evacuated along with their owners,” Mr. Newt said. “Not only is saving the pets the right and the humane thing to do, it also can improve the quality of life of the human survivors.”

Fortunately in Texas, government-types learned from Louisiana’s mistakes. When Hurricane Rita barreled towards Lone Star State, people in Galveston got to take their pets with them as long as they were in carriers. Galveston Mayor Lyda Ann Thompson said they evacuated 3500 people on public transportation, and lots of them had pets. They didn’t count how many people brought their critters, but the mayor said they had a lot of cats, dogs, birds and pocket pets. Ms. Mayor said because of their pet-friendly policy they “had a very high evacuation compliance rate.”

“We knew from Katrina, if we didn’t let people take their animals, they wouldn’t evacuate,” she said. “The shelters being supplied by the state had provisions for the animals.” Yea for Governor Rick Perry’s Office of Emergency Preparedness cuz they gave the order to allow we kitties to get the heck out of Dodge, or in this case, Galveston.

Maybe humans can talk with their donations, too. If they make a donation to the Red Cross or other charities that shelters evacuees, dog-ear it for pet-friendly shelters only. If lots of people do that, maybe they will set up some special shelters for pets and their people.

But, even when this great PETS Act passes, your people shouldn’t expect government to help out much in a disaster. You know what they say, “I’m from the government and I’m here to help.” Yeah, right. Your people gotta make sure you’re safe and have something to eat long before a crisis ever happens. Sometimes disasters, like hurricanes, can be predicted ahead of time. But lots of times there’s no warning. So they gotta come up with their own PETS plan.

If it looks like your people might have to evacuate or even if a nasty storm appears to be brewing, they should lock you and Windy in a room so they won’t have to search for you if the poop hits the fan. I know it’s a bummer, but you know how we kitties like to hide when things get scary. Your people could waste hours trying to find you when they could be driving somewhere safe or taking shelter. If your folks have to evacuate, tell them to never leave you kitties behind, even if officials say they’ll just be out of the house for just a few minutes. Cops and National Guard may later forbid return for weeks. If it’s not safe for people, it’s not safe for cats.

Everyone smart enough to own a cat should be smart enough to put together a kitty in case you gotta bug out. Your people should have a personalized kit ready—one for every pet in the house. Someday your mom could find some guy wearing a badge at her door telling her to get out cuz something nearby might explode.

Your mom needs to make sure you’re always current on your shots, especially rabies.
She should store your emergency kits in an out of the way place, but one that’s easy to get to. She shouldn’t keep it in the basement under the winemaking equipment that your human dad used once in the 1960s.

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