Animals and Emergencies: Real-Life Chaos, Companion Pets, and Disaster Preparedness

What happens when emergencies involve your pets or animals? In this lively and unfiltered episode of The Alerting Authority, hosts Eddie Bertola and Jeannette Sutton bring in their pets—complete with roaming goats, curious cats, and plenty of unexpected moments—to explore the critical role animals play in disasters.

Joined by Dr. Sarah DeYoung, an expert in disaster research and companion animals, the conversation dives into how pets, livestock, and even exotic animals impact evacuation decisions, emergency messaging, and public safety outcomes. From goats knocking over cameras to cats hiding during evacuations, this episode blends humor with powerful insights on preparedness, warning systems, and real-world challenges.

You’ll learn:

•  How animals influence human decision-making during emergencies 
•  Why early warnings are essential for households with pets and livestock 
•  The hidden risks of evacuating (or not evacuating) with animals 
•  Practical preparedness tips for pet owners and emergency managers 
•  The emotional and psychological impact of losing animals in disasters 
•  How organizations and policies are evolving to support animal safety 

Plus, hear firsthand stories from the field—including hurricane evacuations, wildfire impacts, and the chaos of managing animals in real-time.

🎙️ Sponsored by HQE Systems – providing integrated alerting and notification solutions to help emergency managers simplify complex communication during crises.

Whether you're an emergency manager, pet owner, or just love animals, this episode offers valuable insights into making communities safer—for both people and the animals they care about.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:07

Hi, I'm Janessa.

SPEAKER_03 0:09

I'm Eddie Ratola and going a little crazy.

SPEAKER_01 0:13

And we welcome you to another episode of the A Learning Authority, where today we are live on scene. And as always, we encourage you to subscribe, follow, listen, and most importantly, participate in these podcasts. We want your questions, concerns, ideas, problems, pain points, successes, and uh success stories. So we as alerting authorities can better do our jobs and make our communities safer. Over to you in the past year, Eddie.

SPEAKER_03 0:41

Okay. So if you if you have not seen us on YouTube and you're just listening to this, this is the episode to plug into because we not only have an expert here, but we have real life situations that we're gonna talk about. Um and so we'll get to that. Um, but I will say again, thank you. Even our sponsors are pretty open to all this. And the sponsor for today is HQE Systems. Um, for those that don't know, HQE Systems is a disabled veteran-owned company. Um, they specialize in full service solutions. Um, and their iPods approved. Uh, they literally help make your job easier. So, as an alerting authority, you have to manage a lot of different software. And I don't know if you can hear this above the bottle. Um, but they help you manage all the different software, the notifications, whether they're internal, external, whether it's through your sirens system. It's a lot to handle in any type of emergency. And if you can do it from one piece of software, it makes your life that much easier. And so I just want to thank HQE for sponsoring this and giving us the chance to share stories and interview people like Sarah. So thank you.

unknown 1:50

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 1:50

That's great. Uh, so uh let me tell you who we have today, Eddie and all of our listeners and viewers. Today we have Dr. Sarah DeYoung, who is an associate professor in the Department of Sociology and Criminal Justice at the University of Delaware. She also holds a joint appointment in the Disaster Research Center with the Joseph R. Biden School of Public Policy Administration. Her research expertise includes evacuation decision making, companion animals in disasters, infant feeding in emergencies, and refugee well-being. And it is her expertise on companion animals in disasters, which brings her to the alerting authority today. She spent three years at the University of Georgia, where she launched the undergraduate program in disaster management. She completed her postdoc at the University of Delaware and the Disaster Research Center, and she has a PhD from North Carolina State University in applied social and community psychology. She has done field research all over the world and has received research grants from the National Academies of Science and the National Science Foundation and the Natural Hazard Center. She has so much experience and so much knowledge. And I'm just thrilled to see her live today and to reconnect. The last study, the actually maybe the only study that Sarah and I have done together was following the Hawaii ICBM missile notification, where we um conducted research with people who received that message. That was a while ago. And we we learned how people understood and responded to that message. And it was a that was a pretty gnarly project. But we met um when we were both personally introduced to Roger Casperson in at a meeting in Maryland. And yeah, he was just such a dynamic uh figure and so knowledgeable in the area of risk communication. And um, he's sorely missed. He passed away a few years ago. But perhaps most importantly for today, Sarah is a fellow cat lover.

SPEAKER_00 4:06

And so we are both of my co-hosts have hightailed it out of here because we were so excited to have you here today, Sarah.

SPEAKER_01 4:14

Um, and I'm gonna kick it back back over to Eddie and um and we will we will get launched.

SPEAKER_03 4:22

I think I I think it's anyway, pleasure to meet you, Sarah. I have not met her before. And if anybody is watching this, I am sure she has thoughts about who I am right now. And I will just say, bless, you know, have some grace here. Uh anyway, I think one of the first things to do is kind of introduce who we have with us additionally here. And I don't know who you had in your space there, Sarah, but do you mind introducing your special friends? Because that's one of the big reasons we're talking about all this today.

SPEAKER_02 4:57

Sarah, do you want to start by introducing your special friends?

SPEAKER_00 5:00

Oh, my special friend just went into the hallway because they thought they heard the food bowl. So hopefully she'll be back in a moment. Or he, I have several here.

SPEAKER_03 5:09

Well, Jeanette, how many go and then I'll start?

SPEAKER_01 5:14

Okay. Um, well, today we have with us Sir Jingles. Um, he he joins us on every podcast up here on the in the picture above me, above the fireplace. Um, and I don't know if you could see the picture of him also behind the presidential podium. Um, but he he is our surviving kitty. Um, Miss Sassie McSnuggles passed away in December. Um, she was uh 13 years old and a giant main coon. And jingles, we say, is a minor coon, which is not a real breed, but he appreciates being recognized as a main coon kind of cat. He is a long-haired domestic kitty. Um, and he is very, very treat-oriented, as you can tell. Um, I brought with us uh the licky stick and um also some salmon treat stuff.

SPEAKER_03 6:05

The one who just knocked down the camera that I just brought back up. This is I well, I'm out here on the goat pasture that we have, and and we're doing this because Jeanette thought this would be a fun idea. Um but honestly, no, I'm happy. So we have six goats here. Um, we have um three adults and then three newborns that were just born in January, the very, well, December 30th, so right around there. The one I'm bottle feeding right now is Lucky. Lucky was the one that everyone thought was going to die. Lucky was the runt out of the triplets that were born. Um, did not even register a body temperature at all, um, like when he was first born. And so we had to immediately rush him and get him help, a bunch of water baths and a bunch of bottle feeding. He did live in my house for a couple months, which I've never thought I'd have a goat live in my house. Um, but he's back out at the pasture surrounded by his other siblings and other family. Other ones we have on here, if you see this one with the big horns, that's Miss Piggy. Miss Piggy is kind of the boss. Then we have Rocky and Pepper and Latte, Brownie over there. Outside of that, I uh we're we're a proud family of two other dogs and then three cats. Not that I ever wanted three, but they are definitely a part of our family and they do a good job. And we're really blessed to live in a place where we have land that we can have animals like this. So if you see the camera fall or anything else, it's probably a goat who knocked it over.

SPEAKER_00 7:52

And Sarah's kitty uh showed up. Who's that? Yeah, but this is a different cat. I have five. Hey, this is Brie. And when I adopted her from her foster mom, she was leech trained, and people used to take her to like bars and stuff. So she's very chill cat.

unknown 8:13

Oh.

SPEAKER_00 8:14

She's so pretty. She's very silky, sweet, relaxed. Um, she's probably the most chill of all of our cats, which is why she's substituting for truffle and sweetho right now.

SPEAKER_01 8:27

And she um can you describe her coloring for those who aren't watching online?

SPEAKER_00 8:32

Yes, she is a um black, medium-sized domestic short hair with very silky fur and a tuxedo marking, white tuxedo markings and a milk streak down her uh nose or little lightning streak. And she has very green eyes. She kind of looks like one of those black and white lemurs.

SPEAKER_01 8:50

She's very, very pretty. I like that her whiskers are white also. They they're a little distinguished standing out against the black front of her face. For sure, for sure. So, all right, Sarah, let's dive in now that we've introduced our pet friends, and Jingles is still so happy with his licky stuff, and it's it's really stinky. I can tell you that. Um, tell us why it's so important for us to consider pets and other animals when we think about alerts and warnings.

SPEAKER_00 9:21

You know, there's a lot of things to think about, you know, um, coming from both directions. First, what's interesting is sometimes our animals help us with alerts. They help us um detect warnings in the social or in the environmental landscape when we might not be aware of a hazard approaching. Sometimes animal behavior can trigger us to go search for an official source of information. I've interviewed people who said that they've seen their cats or dogs change change behavior, and then that has triggered them to go check their weather app or look at the radar or see what's happening. Um, because dogs and cats and a lot of other mammals, of course, have very sensitive hearing. So oftentimes they will hear a thunderstorm before we do. And so they help us with warnings that way. And then there's another way that we should consider animals, and that's because um we should think about them when we're taking protective action at the household level. And so those are, you know, um, there those are a lot of issues that that we can think about from different approaches.

SPEAKER_01 10:22

I remember talking with people um following an earthquake, and they their animals were responding before they felt the earth shaking. They're very sensitive.

SPEAKER_00 10:31

Yes, they are very sensitive to changes in the environment. I've heard that before too, even about birds, um, you know, and other animals having um unique behavioral reactions before, during, and definitely after a hazard event.

SPEAKER_01 10:44

Yeah. It's we tuning into them is maybe it's part of uh the protective action decision model of paying attention to our animals as they're sensing environmental cues.

SPEAKER_00 10:55

Although, yeah, in 2011, when I was in my PhD program still in Raleigh, there was a tornado outbreak. And my cat at the time, he's passed away since he was an older cat. His name was Wallace. He um ran from the kitchen to the hallway bathroom to shelter behind the toilet, and that was not really like him. And so I was like, what's happening? And it turns out he had heard the tornado outbreak. And I checked the app, and sure enough, there was a tornado about a mile from my apartment at the time, and unfortunately caused a lot of damage and fatalities in a mobile home park. But my cat heard it before I did. So I can sort of, you know, confirm and um uh align my experience with some of the my respondents who have had the same kind of experiences where they said they've seen their animals behave differently um right before during a hazard event, and especially after a hazard event, too, which is a whole nother kind of issue related to recovery and trauma, but definitely on the warning side, thinking about the way our animals act and being in tune with their behavior can help us detect a hazard in the environment earlier. So it gives us a little more um time to make a decision about that protective action.

SPEAKER_01 12:00

Yeah, that's that's fascinating. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 12:04

Well, and then so speaking of evacuations, you've done different studies about evacuations. How does it play into an evacuation if I have pets or if I have like animals like this? How does that play into a decision for someone to choose to evacuate? Or do you find they're choosing to stay home and try to protect what they have?

SPEAKER_00 12:30

You know, I think it's very contextual. It it really depends on the hazard, the geographic location, the composition of the household. Um, but when it comes to evacuation decision making, what we found is we found some distinct patterns. And one of those patterns is that the more animals a household has, um, the more challenges they might experience in evacuations. And so that's why it's important to get an early warning so that folks can make a decision about if they're going to evacuate or shelter in place. And one thing we've noticed too, that's another pattern in the research across many hazards, especially in hurricanes, is oftentimes people attempt to shelter in place and that ends up being dangerous and they have to um engage in a vertical evacuation. So for example, if someone thinks like um in Hurricane Harvey, you know, if they're in the reservoir or bayou area, they end up getting flooded because they think it's too much of a hassle to evacuate with animals, but then they have to evacuate to their second floor of their house because the first floor is underwater and and then they forget to grab like the litter box or other supplies as they're evacuating upstairs. And then the animals don't have their supplies, even if they're sheltering in place, it becomes complicated, missing out on those critical supplies that the animals need. And then for folks who do decide to evacuate, um, again, timing is important because if you're thinking about something like a hurricane where you have three days of advanced notice versus a wildfire, where you may have minutes or even seconds to evacuate, it becomes a lot harder to gather up all your animals, especially animals like cats. They tend to hide. See my cats who's not seeing in my lab at the moment, you see how unpredictable they are in terms of um like a rapid onset hazard event. They might go hiding in furniture where you can't easily find them. And so unfortunately, a lot of respondents that I've talked to have had to leave the animals behind because they can't find the animal in the moment of evacuation. And so a lot of people do not intentionally leave an animal behind, but it's just that difficulty in the moment of stress trying to evacuate and find all their animals if there's a limited amount of time from the time that the warning has been received until um the household is deciding to evacuate.

SPEAKER_01 14:41

Yeah, I can imagine that Sir Jingles would hide in the bed frame because or in the back of the closet. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 14:49

Yeah, and that's something that we talk about in in our book. So I wrote a book with uh Dr. Ashley Farmer. She's at Illinois State University, and we our book came out in 2021. It's called All Creatures Safe and Sound in the Social Landscape of Pets and Disasters. And one thing we recommend is knowing where your animals would hide. So, like if you've noticed during like fireworks or some other or a thunderstorm or a day-to-day type event that frightens your animal, kind of know their go-to hiding spots. Like, for example, truffle hates the vacuum cleaner. So I know she's going to be in the master um bedroom closet. And so that would be where I would look for her if there was a fire or, you know, a flash flooding event. I would, you know, remember her hiding spot. And so that's one thing you can do. Another thing you can do is microchip your animals because if they're separated from you in the evacuation, you'll have a better chance at finding them later. Have a current picture of your animal. That's a really helpful preparedness activity because then if you're separated and you want to be able to post like this is my animal, and then if the animal's at the shelter, there are a lot of volunteers who spend hours matching photos to actual pets that have been separated from folks during the evacuation. So there are different things you can do to minimize the chance that you'll be separated from your animal or that the animal will be harmed or lost during that the hazard event. But there are so many kind of layers to it. And I think one thing that folks are thinking more about is now the impact of climate change and severe heat on animals. And so that's also important in terms of warnings. People are looking at their weather app before they decide if they, you know, what hour of the day they want to take their dog out for a walk. Is it safe? Is the pavement too hot for my dog's paws? Or um should I leave the AC running at a you know certain level before I go to work? Because if you have companion animals or other animals that need a temperature, you know, a safe temperature for um for them to survive, you know, people are considering that more and more now with extreme heat and even with extreme cold events. We had a really bad winter this year. Um, you know, and a lot of the warning messages that were coming out, I saw from uh authorities here in Delaware were indicating, you know, do not leave your animals outside, bring your animals in. Um, if it's sub sub-freezing temperatures, please bring your animals inside because it's not survivable. Um, you know, and some people might think, well, animals have fur, etc. But even there are some circumstances in extreme where animals definitely need to be sheltered and protected from the elements.

SPEAKER_01 17:14

For sure. Yeah, yeah. What what kinds of policies or programs have been established to help to increase people's I don't know if it's willingness, but awareness of being able to evacuate with their pets, or maybe it is willingness? What has been established and what have you found?

SPEAKER_00 17:34

Yeah, so there's a combination of things happening from the federal level down to sort of the local level, and there's also ad hoc or NGO groups that are trying to tackle this problem with education and outreach and awareness. But at the federal level, one of the most substantial pieces of legislation was the Pets Act that was passed after Hurricane Katrina. It was bipartisan legislation, which was an amendment to the Stafford Act. And so this was an add-on to a disaster mitigation piece of legislation. And this basically allows for the freeing up of money, rapidly freeing up funds to be able to flow to state and local officials who are managing companion animal evacuations in large-scale uh disasters. Now, there are a lot of caveats there though, because this only addresses companion animals. It doesn't help with sheltering of goats, pigs, uh exotic animals. And so there's a species limitation. And also, importantly, that act does not mandate private entities such as hotels to accept pets. And that's a misconception. A lot of people think the hotels have to accept pets, and unfortunately, they don't. And even the Red Cross does not have a uh a statute um stating or it's or it's not written anywhere that says that they have to accept pets. A lot of times it's up to the individual um director running a shelter at the local level if they have the capacity, if they've partnered with another agency that has the capacity. A lot of times there's an MOU where an emergency manager has contacts with uh organizations that are specialized and trained in animal evacuation, like Code 3 Associates is one example of that. And if they have an MOU with an association like Code 3 or Red Rover, that's fantastic because then those organizations can come in and act as a supplement or a supportive system to um folks who are on the ground already managing people arriving at sheltering locations.

SPEAKER_01 19:24

That's so important. And I hope that the Red Cross and sheltering organizations become more aware of those partners that they can bring in to help to provide the support. Because just because there's a shelter and it's open and maybe able to receive animals doesn't mean that it has all of the supplies and resources that are going to be necessary for for animals to feel safe and comfortable. They're already going to be very scared. Um, and you know, having those partnerships, it just sounds really, really useful and important.

SPEAKER_00 19:57

Yeah. And even the folks who work with like Code 3 Associates or Red River, they're trained in animal handling and they understand, you know, what it takes to coordinate with folks on the ground. Um, they understand the importance of respecting, you know, local voices and folks who are already working in the animal rescue network locally. And so I found that to be a strength of those organizations when they come and partner with um the local community that's been impacted. For example, like after Hurricane Harvey, Dallas SPCA worked with Red Rover. Red Rover's based in Sacramento, but they deployed to um a convention center in Dallas, which had about 1,700 evacuees. And the evacuees were in the convention center and all their animals were in a parking garage contiguous to the that shelter. And it was a really great system because the evacuees could take a golf cart over and see their animals and then go back to the um convention center at night for the shower, sleep, and food. And then the animals were being taken care of by SPCA volunteers and folks who were trained by Red River who could walk the dogs, they could keep track of all of the animals, inventory, making sure that animals were up to date on vaccinations, et cetera. And so having that partnership with folks that have the technical expertise is so important. And of course, in other states and scenarios like in California, um, you know, veterinary groups and veterinary medical programs have partnered during wildfires to help with, you know, burn victims, cats that have been burned victims in some of the major fires in Sonoma County and in Boot County and all these other major fires. There have been some vet programs who have really um stepped up and volunteered with, you know, their um their medical students and folks who are doing training for burn and animal rescue um operations. And so, you know, again, it's sort of multi agency. It's not just one agency that can handle animals and emergencies, it's really a lot of different agencies. And then a lot of it starts with warnings, of course, because that way people have the adequate time to make sure their animals are out of harm's way. Um, but as I mentioned earlier, unfortunately, sometimes sadly, that doesn't. Always happen. Some of that has to do with people not being weather salient. Like right um before and during Hurricane Helene, I was following real time a story unfolding where there was a guy who was at a conference in Greensboro, North Carolina for work when Hurricane Haleen dumped water all over the mountain. So he was about two hours away from home. He had kenned his golden retriever in the basement while he was at work. And so he was begging someone, anyone nearby, to go check on his dog. Unfortunately, the dog did not make it because he didn't anticipate that amount of rainfall. And so sorry to share such a sad story, but this is sort of emphasizing the importance of weather salience. And there are some similar stories like that that happened during Hurricane Hardy with folks who had dogs kenneled in their backyard and they live near the bayou. And so thinking about, you know, if you just are going to be going to work for the day, if you're going to a friend's house, but you might not be able to come back if there's severe flooding of the roads. So not being able to get back and rescue the animals unfortunately ends up being a huge barrier, even once folks become aware of the hazard situation.

SPEAKER_01 23:04

Yeah. And these are like our family members. And it's just really tragic and sad.

SPEAKER_00 23:10

Yeah, that's one of the reasons why warnings are so important, because if we can get adequate warnings in a timely manner that clearly describe the kinds of impacts that are possible, then we start to think, oh, okay, it's not just freezing outside, it's life-threatening, you know, and then we think about how that might apply to our companion animals, you know, our family members. We take that a little bit more seriously if we hear that text and a warning message, life-threatening temperatures, right? And so then we're able to personalize that warning, you know, based on important research by Lyndon Perry, where we're thinking about how can we personalize that warning message? If we can personalize that warning and apply it to our pets that we care so much about, um, then we have a better chance of being able to take that protective action.

SPEAKER_03 23:56

So speaking about messaging, like, and obviously I'm out here with not my dogs. My dogs are inside and I think they are. They could have escaped. Who knows? Um, they tend to do that. Um, but when it comes to messaging, like what are tips then for emergency managers? So, or alerting authorities. So if I have an emergency here and I have to send out a message, which we do, um, not that we have an active one. I mean, if we were to have an emergency, what tips would you have for people beyond their companion animals, right? With our with our cats, dogs, common domestic. What about all the stuff that we have out here? And is there certain stuff that can be put in a message to help us be better prepared so that everybody has the best chance?

SPEAKER_00 24:47

Yeah. And so again, that's one of the huge limitations of the Pets Act is that it mainly focuses on cats and dogs, uh, standard domestic animals. But in um my field work with Dr. Farmer, we visited, you know, a range of locations where people with pets and animals had so many complications and issues. Like during Hurricane Florence in North Carolina, there were folks who had potbellied pigs. Potbellied pigs are hard to transport, especially when they're full grown. And so you need, again, adequate warning time. If folks have goats, uh, cows, uh, horses, horses are a big one. You know, before I started doing my field work, I kind of assumed horses were just something that rich people had. But turns out there's a lot of middle and lower income folks who have um horses and they need support with evacuation. They need early warnings, and they also need information about which direction the hazard is coming from. Because if you have a lot of horses, what we found is sometimes it's safer to temporarily let them roam away from the hazard, depending on the direction that it's coming from. For example, cutting a chain link fence to let them get away from if they're fenced in in something, an area that is known to flood, sometimes it's better if the animal has a marking system, like a microchip or something, to let the animal get out of that fenced in space. Now, that's hazard specific. Sometimes animals want to run back in the barn when they're afraid, and that's the worst place to be in a wildfire. Okay, because of um, you know, it's just so flammable with wood and all the materials. And so thinking about the hazard type, the direction the hazard is coming from. So that information is critical. And then um, you know, knowing about how much time you have to evacuate because it takes time. Um, a lot of larger animals, there's a lot of issues, especially like I said, with horses and equine issues. Um, putting a horse on a trailer has to be done by trained folks. Um, and even lifting a horse out of water has you have to have technical equipment. So, like Code 3 Associates, again, are um that's a key organization that has training in large technical animal rescue. So a lot of agricultural agencies um partner with emergency um responders during large-scale flooding events for helping um, you know, rescue those kinds of animals. Um, we've also seen some really sad outcomes in that area where there just wasn't enough equipment or enough foresight to let the animals out of the enclosure in a flooding scenario. Again, and in that case, you kind of have to make a split second or minute-to-minute trade-off, like, okay, is it better to let my horses out and get higher ground and then I don't find them in a day or two? Or if you keep them contained in a flood zone, then they have virtually no chance of survival because they can't get out of the chain like fence. And if it's you know up to here, then they're likely to drown. And then another thing that's important to think about, like with horses and other livestock, is there's something called river rot, where even if they experience a flooding event and they survive, if they're in water for a certain amount of time, and you probably know this, Eddie, with your goats, but if they're in water for a certain amount of time, it can be fatal because their skin will sloth off after the flooding event. And it's a very painful way for them to go. And so again, knowing what type of hazard, how long, um uh, what what kind of lead time you have for evacuating, um, that's really important um so that folks can get the technical equipment they need. There are a lot of um nonprofit organizations, like fleet of angels that coordinates across many parts of the United States, and they um, you know, they participate in like managing feeding of horses, um, arranging trailers and transportation, working with um emergency managers and coming up with MOUs for like sheltering fairground locations and things like that. So that that's really important. And there are so many factors that that go into that kind of planning. So that's a really great question, Eddie.

SPEAKER_03 28:34

And I would say like that's I think that's one of the key points for me is I've worked and responded to I don't even know how many fires, floods in California when I worked there, whether it was Santa Rosa, Sonoma, Paradise, up and down Lake Tahoe, Central and Southern California, right? Um I oftentimes there are NGOs that are amazing. They they really are, that are a non-gov-governmental organization, NGOs. Sorry, I know we have to be careful about jargon even here, but there are organizations out there that want to help, that have resources. And what happens, at least what I've seen, and some of the pain points are the emergency manager may know because they've done pre-work and they're they're like, hey, we've got it. But the local owner doesn't know. And they freak out because they're like, I literally don't know how I'm gonna move my animals here or what the safe place is. And I think that's probably one of the biggest barriers for alerting authorities and emergency managers, is almost like a lack of hope that they're they're able to share, not because the resources aren't there, but because we haven't done a good enough job of educating people, right? That is saying, like, there are things out there. Um, because I would say some of the more difficult conversations I've had, and I've been to some of the domestic pet rescues after a fire where they're collected and they're being cared for. And it, there, there's a lot of angels out there that are doing this work. Um, but there are family members that had no idea that they could bring an animal. And so they had to make that difficult choice to leave their animal. And looking backwards, it's just besides losing your house or anything else, it's devastating. Um, and so that's why I think good habits of communication proactively is probably something we can all do a little bit better at.

SPEAKER_00 30:31

Yeah, and I like that you mentioned hope because that's a theme that I saw and heard repeatedly from folks that I've talked to across multiple hazards. Their pets are a symbol of hope. They're not just family members. So even if they lose their house, you know, I'm not trying to like romanticize the whole experience that some someone might have after a disaster, but a lot of people said, listen, I might have lost my house or my business. But when I came back and I saw that my cat or my dog made it, I had hope that everything was eventually going to be okay. Because a lot of times the animal itself becomes a symbol of hope. Because an animal has been with a lot of families throughout the life course. So an animal is linked with your identity, you know, different elements of community. And so when animals um, you know, are able to survive the hazard event, people, you know, really cling to that. Um, and so it and conversely, if the animal does not survive, there's a lot of trauma involved, there's a lot of guilt involved. Um, and so there's also an increase in awareness and outreach for that as an occurrence. Because again, a lot of people, like you said, they make the difficult decision they didn't know. Or like I said earlier, people are away at work when the hazard um arrives or happens, and then it's tragedy. And then people are just heartbroken because then they take ownership of that tragic event and what happened to their animal. And so just having more information can empower people. Like, for example, you know, an educational campaign about don't kennel your animals in the lowest part of your home. You know, try to, if there's any chance that there's going to be a thunderstorm or massive rainfall event and you could go to work and you have to kennel your animal when you're away, you know, make sure they're not the lowest part of your home or your basement level. Um, simple things like that can make the difference in the outcome of some of these stories, right? Um, or even just knowing the importance of weather awareness and not leaving, you know, dogs in hot cars. Um, you know, if people are going and running errands in like Target or Walmart and they might think, oh, it's not that hot, I have the windows cracked. But people just not having that information about what that level of heat means and how quickly a car can heat up, all of those sorts of things. People having that information again becomes really important.

SPEAKER_01 32:42

I think those are such important reminders. We're we've we've entered tornado season, and there's I'm I'm seeing webinar announcements about heat awareness and extreme heat as we move into the summer and as places prepare for like the the World Cup and other big outdoor events. But um, you know, they they frequently talk about children being in a car, but you know, our pets are you maybe we need to expand that messaging to include don't leave your pets in a car. Little jingles. Yeah. He loves being warm, but he would just bake.

SPEAKER_02 33:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 33:22

I mean, that's it's it's so dangerous, you know, because it can happen very quickly, you know. I think we we both had a mutual colleague from the University of Georgia, remember Castle Williams? He studied hot car deaths in children and and you know, and him and I had a lot of conversations about how that could be applied into, you know, the companion animal landscape. And and especially like, you know, like we know hot car deaths happen more frequently in like states like Texas and Florida, but I think in some of the northeastern areas, it's there's a kind of a risk where people underestimate how quickly on even a somewhat cloudy day, a car can get hot with even with the windows cracked. And so just things like that, like adequate and accurate risk messaging can really help people make safer decisions and um and not put their pets in in in danger, you know, because a lot of people like taking their animals with them wherever they go, but then there's sort of a trade-off with that, um, it becomes risky. Similarly, if you're trying to travel during a severe ice storm event, if you get stranded in your car without food and water and your dog is with you, the dog is similarly vulnerable to the elements. Um, and so, you know, people and pets are linked in vulnerability. And uh, I've heard, you know, different opinions where people say, well, maybe folks are leaving pets behind because they're deciding that the human life is more important than the animal life. And I think that's kind of a bad way to approach it. There's no other way to say it because there's not either or. It's people and animals are linked. And you don't have to like, I've never seen a scenario where someone said, we couldn't bring that, you know, that that dochin onto this uh canoe during this, you know, freshwater flooding event because there were too many people and then one more animal would have sunk the boat. I've never actually seen that scenario happen, but people like to sensationalize it's animals or people, and it's not, they're linked together, you know, because as we said before, and as we know very well, animals are very much in um in a lot of people's eyes, they're members of the family. And so understanding that people will refuse evacuation and they will stay where they are if they don't know of a viable um route or shelter for taking their convenient animal with them safely. Um, and that was true in Hurricane Katrina, but it still remains true today in a lot of hazards. Even after the data collection for my book, there was a local flooding event here in Wilmington, Delaware. And I heard about some unfortunate scenarios in which, you know, there was um sheltering at a gymnasium during several homes that got flooded in downtown Wilmington, and there were some people trying to arrive with their small dogs. And some of the folks managing the shelter were like, we don't have any supplies for you to bring your dog. And, you know, and I I'm thinking to myself, you know, we've done so much research um for so many decades on this topic now. So we really need to move forward with the policies, the education and the outreach and making sure people have the supplies to to facilitate um, you know, delivering those adequate warnings to include animals, but then also including adequate sheltering provisions for folks with companion animals. I mean, I think there's, you know, there's enough research to show us what we need to do. We just need to take action.

SPEAKER_01 36:25

Right. Yeah. So you've talked a little bit about livestock and about our companion animals. What about exotic animals? Like some people, reptiles and birds. Like, what about them?

SPEAKER_00 36:36

Yeah. And so, like I was joking at the beginning when we were getting our cameras set up, one time when I was interviewing a woman in Miami after Hurricane Irma, as I was sitting there talking to her, a hedgehog popped out of her purse. And that was her companion animal, you know, and she um had all kinds of actually all kinds of animals because she was working as a small um nonprofit animal rescue organization. But, you know, there are so many folks who also have that difficult decision to make because some of those exotic animals are not as easy to transport because of their sensitivity to temperature changes, like chinchillas, reptiles, some forms of exotic birds, they're much more sensitive. And so thinking about making a plan, like communicating with your veterinarian, um, if you have an exotic animal, about what would be the best way. And you could frame it as, you know, if there's a house fire, what would be the best thing for me to do in terms of having adequate supplies and having a like a small um transport tank to supplement your larger tank? And it kind of sounds kind of obvious, but I think that's a barrier across all species, is that folks don't think about having a container to immediately leave that's easily assembled and that has all the supplies, the food and temperature control environment. And again, that temperature controlled environment can be the trickiest thing for those exotic animals. But if folks are thinking about that in advance, they can um gather some supplies to make sure the animal has a better chance at survival. Some of the saddest stories I've seen after some of the wildfires are people who came back and their house might have um survived a wildfire, but because they had to be evacuated for several weeks, they weren't able to monitor the tank conditions. So, like saltwater fish, and people spend thousands of dollars maintaining their saltwater fish. And so that's a loss of money, that's a loss of their companion animals. Um, and you know, and it that's also a loss of like, again, just a part of your home. And, you know, companion animals are linked with our identity again. And so losing saltwater fish is no small thing, especially if you had think about it. If you've had those fish for 15, 20 years or more, a turtle you've had for that amount of time, turtles live forever, some parrots live in, you know, for 30 years or more, and you've had that animal forever and it perishes in a fire. Think about the emotional toll that might take. So that's another thing to think about with exotic animals, is they live so much longer. And so people are gonna be more emotionally attached to those animals in often um often cases because they've been with us throughout the life course.

SPEAKER_03 38:59

Well, I think that's that's one of the problems with our I was gonna say that's one of the problems with our current strategy, is oftentimes we're doing alerts and warnings so late in the game that we don't have time to adequately prepare. And then, like me as a first responder, if I'm going door to door, I'm taking wife, children, husband, family, I'm not taking fish or anything else because I don't have the time. That is not my priority. And so it really goes back to, and again, we we have it um here kind of as the next question anyway, but it's that emphasis that if you have those needs, whether it's hauling things with a trailer, right? Like you said, horses or anything else, if you know as an emergency manager that I mean, not that you need people to register their saltwater fish, right? But it's that idea that you have a community that has these things. You need to get information out that much faster. And so I just wanted to get specifically like your thoughts on the timing element, because I have emergency managers that that are listening to this, that I talk to, that Jeanette and I talk to, that are like, well, we don't want to alert people or alarm people too soon. It may be nothing. We may not have the tornado actually hit. But then when the winds are coming up and we have the severe thunderstorm or whatever it is, it's literally too late for for me as an emergency or responder, right? To go and then say, okay, let's collect, you know, animals here or this over here. We're forced to prioritize. Um, and so that's why I would just say timing has got to be such an important element in this.

SPEAKER_00 40:44

Yeah, well, one time I had the honor of listening to uh Craig Fuier give a talk when he came to Athens, Georgia, um, to the University of Georgia. And he was talking about the whole community approach. And he said he'd much rather have those local emergency managers escalating too fast, too quickly, spending too much money and warning too many people, and then later on being like, okay, now let's figure out how we, you know, uh recover from the lost money, et cetera, than wishing that you had escalated more quickly. Right. He said that's a much better trade-off. And even though that seems like a simple concept, he said that it made all the difference in embodying that in his leadership because that way people didn't fear repercussions for escalating too quickly or getting too many people out of a hazard zone. That way people felt comfortable saying, well, hey, Craig, we evacuated the whole damn county or, you know, whatever. And, you know, better safe than sorry, I guess is the best way to summarize that. Um, and you know, and it is so interesting because sometimes, you know, there's so many barriers. And if you can give people time, time is is is a privilege, is a gift in terms of those extra seconds to the best of your ability when it comes to um, you know, folks who have added barriers to begin with, you know, folks with disabilities like in the campfire. We know that like so many of the folks who perished in the campfire in Boot County had disabilities, but a lot of those folks had companion animals, children, elderly parents, they had all these other layers of vulnerability. And that's another reason why the warnings are so important. So we're seeing companion animals as one of those layers, right? Um, and so I think acknowledging that and using um um our messaging, you know, leveraging what we know about um those vulnerabilities and how that can increase the time needed to evacuate um should be used. And then another thing too, as as you were talking, I was thinking about again, partnerships are so important. So you were talking about like knowing who's the right person to be able to mobilize a bunch of horse trailers. Like, so just having those contacts and that helps with the timing because then you minimize it minimizes the amount of time you need mobilizing those resources in the acute phase as a hazard. And so what I've seen um really creative groups do is fostering systems in hurricanes, um, is you can get the message out really quickly, especially like in hurricanes where where you can like there's you know, three, four days we're looking at a landfall of a major category storm. There's a group called Saving Grace in North Carolina that they do a really great like fostering for the weekend program. And then they took that fostering for the weekend program and they said, okay, foster during the hurricane. And so what happened is they they're able to move animals into individual homes that can be sheltered. And so they have space freed up where animals coming in from the streets or the floods can be moved into the brick and mortar shelter. And so animals can be moved around and make there's more space. But then also people start adopting really quickly because they fostered for the weekend or they fostered through the hurricane. So that increases adoption rates, which reduces overall animal vulnerability. And so, you know, using those creative approaches and partnering, like in Hawaii during the lava flows 2018, there were lots of groups saying, Hey, I have a field here, I can host uh five goats and a cow, you know, or I have space here, and then people just coordinating with each other. sort of in an ad hoc way saying like I've got space, I can host animals, or I need space, I have animals. And then people connecting and sort of formalizing that communication system. I think there's been some efforts people have made like through various apps and things like that. But I think streamlining that would be really important because that would also reduce the amount of time needed for that mobilization. And a lot of that comes like right in the middle of the hazard event. So you're you're right, Eddie, that like the timing becomes so critical because that enables people to think clearly about their resources or thinking about the difference between a rapid onset event versus a little bit more of a slower onset event. But if you have the supplies ready to go out the door, I think if everyone thinks about if there's a fire and what do I need for a fire, then you're going to have this baseline of things you're going to need to evacuate for a hurricane too. So think about the most devastating, most rapid onset disaster that you could have and what key things you would need to get your animal out. And if you have those things in a like a a box, you know, by your door somewhere, like in a closet near your garage or somewhere where you know that's your animal kit. And just keep that there and just know that that's my go kit for my you know my dog, my cat, my whatever that you need. But again, like like like Eddie was sharing, you know, that becomes a lot more complex with like larger animals and exotic animals and all those other issues. So thinking about planning for those emergencies becomes even more important with those complications.

SPEAKER_01 45:24

You mentioned several agencies because I mean your research is so extensive. You know about all these different little emergent groups sort of formed in the in as events un unfold and then also things that pop up afterwards to help. But there can you name some of the key organizations that people should be aware of as they're thinking about these problems so we can make sure to direct people to those resources?

SPEAKER_00 45:52

Yeah so Code 3 Associates is one of the main resources because they do extensive training. So people can earn educational credits for technical training related to large animal rescue handling animals and all sorts of other technical aspects of managing animals. And so if emergency responders or even folks who are doing sheltering or folks who are engaged in mass care, if they can take those education credits through the um through the programs that Code 3 associates offer, I mean they are constantly offering educational classes and they're really cheap. Like I just checked last night in one of the upcoming classes they have on animal handling it's a virtual class in April and it's only $25 for the virtual class. You know so anyone like who's like a volunteer or who um works with you know local emergency management can enroll in those courses just for their information and increase their awareness or they can you know make sure their team is trained in some of those critical issues. But then also having those MOUs in place with folks like the Code 3 associates or organizations like Red Rover. Like I said they're based out of Sacramento but they have a really um you know their approach is to be aligned with integrity. So they have uh basically this mission where they're not going to just self-deploy. They're they're they won't go to the area unless they're requested. Same for Code 3 associates you know MOUs are really important. So they want to make sure that the local emergency managers even need their resources. But in order for the local emergency managers and folks to say hey we need your help they need to know about the opportunities for those MOUs and those partnerships. And what's really interesting is folks like um Red Rover as an organization, you know, they have a lot of legal training so they also handle things like puppy mill investigations. And so like in blue sky events um but that's a really useful knowledge like to have legal training when there's a hurricane evacuation because then they know things about like property laws, like going into someone's property if people don't know who's the owner of a property but there are some dogs that need to be rescued they can help emergency responders navigate that. So a lot of that becomes important during that time because not everyone has those technical expertise or folks are you know uncertain about what to do in some of those situations. And so again just partnering with those organizations becomes really important partnering with veterinary schools, you know, NC State has a great veterinary program and a lot of those folks have been um helping with medical care at the the fairgrounds when there's large scale evacuations, same in California with some of the vet schools there. So just partnering with veterinary professionals, partnering with large-scale technical animal rescue operations, you know, so making sure that those folks are in communication with your emergency management team prior to the disaster reduces confusion or the amount of time you spent looking up all that information once the hazard is already at your doorstep.

SPEAKER_01 48:40

Yeah thank you those are great resources and we will make sure to include those in the show notes.

SPEAKER_03 48:46

Awesome absolutely and like one thing that I've run into a lot and I had to do quite a bit of research on during these things were the difference between service animals and companion or emotional support animals because the Americans for Disability Act that talks pretty clearly about what a service animal is very clear honestly. And we get people that are bringing in animals and it's and it's it's cats, it's everything else and sometimes making the claim that it's a service animal when in fact um just I I invite everyone to look it up there was a lot that happened to the ADA act about these types of of animals in the about the 2013 timeframe and it's clearly defined as a dog and there's one other option and do you guys know what that other option is if you because if you're allergic to a dog what's the other service animal that you were allowed to have that people have to make allowances for it's it's kind of crazy.

SPEAKER_01 49:46

Is it a miniature horse?

SPEAKER_03 49:48

Like a miniature horse correct yes oh bravo uh it is a miniature horse and and my next guest is going to be llama yeah yeah um and so it's it's important too so emergency managers alerting authorities people out there who are engaged in this um be aware but I would say even if something does not qualify for the federal protection of being a service animal there are many organizations that still allow the other companion type animals or emotional support animals just the same. And it is up to those individual entities um property managers owners to make that decision. And so before you definitively say service animals only, please make sure to reach out to whoever is actually the owner of that or has responsibility because they may be willing to make other allowances. So the only thing that we have to be careful of yes service animals, we want to make sure those are protected but oftentimes we say no in advance when it may be a yes for them to be able to bring something into an establishment. So let those owners make those decisions.

SPEAKER_00 51:03

And again that's just from personal experience that I've had to work with and deal with those um and I will say it leads to kind of my final thought and question is is there anything else we should be watching for coming out whether it's legislation research or anything to help us continue to improve so one thing that I've had my eye on both in terms of research and policy is vaccines because unfortunately the anti-vaccine rhetoric in human health has creaked into the animal and veterinary realm. So people now are saying I don't want my cat or dog to get vaccinated because of the things that are in the vaccine well you know um public health outreach is really important. Education outreach is really important you know rabies vaccines are important. And so helping people understand the reason for these regular maintenance vaccines, these routine vaccines that animals need, um I think we're going to need new tools to combat misinformation and anti-vax rhetoric and that's a new landscape because I know the anti-vax you know language has been around for a while in in in people in terms of like measles going all the way back to 80s and 90s. But now I think for the first time in the in in the US and Western history is now also creeping into the veterinary realm where people are saying I don't want to vaccinate my animal and that's I think I I kind of foresee that becoming a little bit more of an issue and then just not understanding or fully comprehending the impact of like social factors overlapping with epidemiological factors. Like cats are really susceptible to COVID. And so when there's a new variant um they can get really sick and same for bird flu. You know cats have a really high fatality rate for bird flu. And so epidemiological warnings I think are really important for social research on animals because I think we don't know enough and we haven't gathered enough data to make some more um effective policy interventions in that area those are great great things to be thinking about jingles is going to go spend a month with his uh human sibling in Rhode Island this summer while I'm traveling and he has to get a vaccine before he gets to go and stay at that apartment complex.

SPEAKER_01 53:16

And um I wasn't aware that people were starting to push back on those issues. Jingles is also not happy about spending four hours in a car this summer he really does not like I know poor kitty. But um yeah I think that's an those are important things to be to be watching for so um Sarah this has been a really fascinating conversation. I've loved getting to meet your kitties um and and having our our other companions here on the screen with us today. It's been a lot of fun jingles had a lot of tuna treat and um kept coming over he certainly has tuna breath and hopefully it stops there. And um and Eddie it's been a lot of fun to see you sitting out in the goat pasture for an hour. For those who are listening and those who are tuning in we here at the Alerting authority are here to help you with all of your messaging as you're thinking about how to be effective. We provide training on how to prepare your alerts and warnings for all sorts of events. We do message audits and template reviews provide policy assistance and we know experts like Sarah who can come in and help us think about these really important issues that are not incorporated into our primary documents that we are using to guide emergency management messaging. A lot of these messages we were talking about today should be part of your toolkit as you're thinking about extreme heat, extreme cold, flooding animal preparedness some of these things are included in the warning lexicon, but they're not dominant. So you know we can think about doing more work around that in the future and certainly bringing Sarah in as an expert to help us to think about it. And I also want to plug the warning bootcamp is coming up again in July, July 20th through 24th we've got a few people who have already signed up and we are expecting to have a full cohort so please um check it out at thewarnroom.com if you're interested in the warning boot camp to improve your warnings and get them all prepared.

SPEAKER_00 55:43

Eddie or Sarah do you have any final comments no thank you Jeanette and Eddie it was so great chatting with you both for an hour and seeing the goats and seeing jingles and I'm sorry that my uh my furry companions were a little bit more aloof today. And I'll bring a treat next time. Okay.

SPEAKER_03 56:01

Well no I am grateful and this is obviously really fun when we get to do stuff like this because this is real life. And if if I were to respond to a disaster or if I had something happen in my area, I mean this would be a part of my decision making for sure. And if you saw me swatting around it's because we have a few beehives that are next to me here as well. They've been really good. So I've I tried to stay um upwind of them so that they're not being blown towards me. So positioning was important. Uh and honestly it's I as I tell Jeanette during a lot of these it these types of interviews help me rethink like a realistic plan for my community who, you know, where I'm still responsible for and for the way that we talk to others so we can bring up solutions and not just problems. So um I'm grateful for this talk and for all of everybody who's joining us again if you're on YouTube, this is the one to see on YouTube for all of the fun. And if our producer ends up putting some of those outtakes on there too by all means you're gonna see some funny stuff as we just prep for this call and for this uh interview. But here at the Alerting Authority uh we truly believe every second has a story and in this one you heard that every life every life has value and is important and we want to help it and we want to be here to help tell your story. So thank you for listening