Snow in Fargo, ND

The Code 3 Riders on the Storm Animal Rescue Team has responded to Fargo, ND to assist the community with animals affected by the flooding of the Red River.

Friday March 27, 2009; The team arrived on late at the Red River Valley Fairgrounds where the Fargo-Moorehead Humane Society has set up an emergency shelter for the animals displaced by the flooding.

Saturday March 28, 2009; The team met with the officials at the EOC and were informed that the levies were holding steady. The teams spent most of the morning doing assessments of the levees and flooded areas looking for stranded animals

Saturday afternoon a request to rescue 2 cats out of an apartment high rise was received. The team along with the fire department entered the building and retrieved the cats which were returned to their owner who was waiting at the barricade. While there, they were approached by another resident to rescue a beta fish. In the afternoon the team assisted the shelter volunteers by moving 2000 pounds of horse feed from a local retailer who donated it to the shelter for the horses being housed.

Sunday March 29, 2009
After receiving a report of horses in water north of Fargo the team went out in search of them. While the horse were surrounded on 3 sides by water they were high and dry, had food, water and shelter so they were left to shelter in place. The teams received information regarding a breeder of large cats (bobcat, lynx, etc), they went to the area and discovered the area was under about 20 feet of water.

Monday March 30, 2009

The team spent most of the morning getting equipment readied as we had a blizzard coming in to the area. The team took cat supplies to the high rise for feeding in place of several cats. The team work supporting sheltering efforts.

The snow hit the Fargo area about noon.

Tuesday March 31, 200
The blizzard has set into the area in full force!!! All non essential movement has been restricted by the sheriff and state patrol. The team has spent the day supporting the sheltering staff.

September 9-14-08

After driving all night, the Code 3 team arrived at the Houston SPCA and hit the ground running. We were tasked with the management of field operations. Our first task was to turn the parking lot of the Houston SPCA into a Base Camp of operations for the other organizations and volunteers to operate from.

Teams from:
Code 3 Associates, Longmont, CO
The Humane Society of Missouri, St Louis, MO
Denver Dumb Friends League, Denver, CO
Humane Society of the Pike’s Peak Region, Pikes Peak, CO
SPCA of Texas, Dallas, TX
Humane Society of Boulder Valley, Boulder, CO
Larimer Humane Society, Fort Collins, CO
Louisiana SPCA, New Orleans, LA
SPCA of Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA

56 volunteers have arrived or are arriving today to assist Houston SPCA in their effort to support their own shelter staff, support for the wildlife shelter which is part of HSPCA, assist Galveston Island with establishing an Emergency Shelter, assessment of the animal needs and Search & Rescue Efforts.

3 Search & Rescue teams made up of members from the Houston SPCA field services and Code 3 Associates responded to calls for 46 animals.

All team members are taking turns helping with the more than 300 Baby Squirrels that are being cared.

8 AM September 13, 2008

This morning Code 3 Associates, Inc deployed a 7 member Water Rescue Team along with BART (Big Animal Rescue Truck) from Longmont, CO to Houston TX to assist in the aftermath of Hurricane Ike.

The team was deployed at the request of Houston SPCA and Harris County to assist with Search and Rescue operations in the communities hardest hit by Hurricane Ike.

3 AM September 14, 2008

The team continues to travel through the night taking turns driving and sleeping as best we can to arrive in Houston by Sunday morning. Come day break the team will be part of the historic effort to assist stranded Humans and their companion animals, live stock, exotic animals and wildlife.

I will post updates and pictures as I can
Kay Mayfield
Director of Emergency Services
Code 3 Associates, Inc

Saturday June 14, 2008
Code 3 was deployed to assist in the Iowa Communities affected by the recent flooding. The team headed to one of the hardest hit communities first, Cedar Rapids, to join our long time partners The Humane Society of Missouri in their efforts to make a difference for the animals. Code 3 and HSMO were also being joined by HSUS.

When we arrived the effected areas of Cedar Rapids were under approximately 10 feet of water. It was time for the teams to break out the water rescue gear and boats. The people affected were able to call into a phone bank and request rescue for pets left behind.

Regional Team Lead Eric Thompson and Team member Cathy Hammack from the Kansas City, KS area were the first Code 3 team to arrive. They went right to work and spent the day in the affected area with the HSMO team responding to rescue requests.

Kay Mayfield and Mike West (Goose) arrived late afternoon

Sunday June 15, 2008
Code 3, HSMO and HSUS teams gathered in the staging area to receive rescue assignments. Each 2 person team was accompanied by a local fire fighter who knew the area and could help guide us.

The teams worked through the requests in hand with more coming in. The teams worked water operations hard all day to pull as many animals as we could get to. With night coming on we pulled out boats for the day.

Code 3’s Jim Boller and team member Jason Painter arrived from a training class in VA to join the effort.

Monday June 16, 2008
HSMO Teams left to go back to MO due to reports of flooding in their own state.

The day brought a large drop in the water levels, enabling most of the teams to drive into the affected areas to perform rescues. With one team (Jim & Jason) going out on the remaining water to recover the animals there, the rest of the teams went to work slogging through ankle to knee high water, mud and slime to get to our rescues.

Code 3 team members Eric & Goose braved a High Rise in the flood water and dark, climbing to the 19th floor to rescue a cat.

Tuesday June 17, 2008
All of the teams spent the day driving or walking into the affected area. By the end of the day we had completed all of the out standing rescue requests.

Code 3 was demobilized from Cedar Rapids and redeployed to Iowa City.

The numbers of Animals rescued from Cedar Rapids is
Dogs 19
Cats 299
Birds 8
Lizards 1
Other 7

Total 334 Animals

Wednesday June 18, 2008
Code 3 teams arrived at the Emergency Shelter set up at the Johnson County Fair Grounds where the Iowa City Animal Care & Adoption Center had evacuated their animals to and were housing other animals affected by the flood waters. The teams were responding to a request for water rescue team assistance from the State Department of Agriculture and Misha Goodman, Director of Animal Services in Iowa City.

After unloading boats and equipment Jim and Goose responded to several calls in the Johnson county area while Kay and Jason responded to calls in Coralville city.

The two teams were able to rescue
Cats 10
Birds 2
Bearded Dragon 1
Rabbit 1
White Tree Frog 1
Several Fish Tanks 50 (Inc. a catfish and several sharks)

Total 65 Animals

The teams were able to clear all outstanding calls.

Thursday June 19, 2008
The teams assisted the staff of the Iowa City Animal Care & Adoption Center in removing some important paperwork and equipment from inside the center which was still surrounded by about 2 feet of water.

The team also received some much needed down time to catch up on general equipment repairs and laundry.

As no more rescue requests were received the teams were demobilized and redeployed 80 miles south to Donnellson, IA for the following morning.

Friday June 20 & Saturday June 21, 2008
The Code 3 teams were deployed to assist Lee County in assessing the needs of the communities along both the Mississippi River and the Des Moines River. After checking in at the staging area that was being set up at the Lee County Fair Grounds in Donnellson the teams got to work checking on not only the 6 communities where flooding was reported but the whole length of both rivers within the county.

After two days of checking with City officials, Fire Departments, Police, Sheriff’s and National Guard and physically running the roads along the rivers we only found a few areas with minor flooding and none of the communities needing any assistance. The rivers crested between Friday and Saturday and were receding so on Saturday afternoon after reporting our findings to the EOC we were demobilized to return back to Longmont the following day.

The State of Iowa and the State Department of Agriculture thanked Code 3 for our team’s assistance to their communities and their animals in their time of need.

We would like to thank our Volunteers and Donors, who make it possible for Code 3 to do what we do best!

Thursday April 3, 2008

The Code 3 team was getting ready to set up at the Indianapolis State Fair Ground for the Hoosier Horse Fair & Expo when we received a call from The Humane Society of Missouri to redeploy to Sikeston, MO to assist with flooding and possible flooding issues.

The Code 3 team left Indianapolis and traveled to Sikeston to meet up with Brian Williams from HSMO at the Regional EOC. After checking in we bunked down for the night while remaining on call for emergency assistance.

Friday April 4, 2008

The Code 3 team met up with the team from Humane Society of Missouri and established a base camp. The teams split up to do assessments of areas of concern.

The Caruthersville area had moderate flooding with some areas the Caruthersville Humane Society could not access with out 4 wheel drives.

The teams remained on stand by for possible levee failure in Butler County.

Saturday April 5, 2008

The teams deployed to Caruthersville to assist with accessing areas with our 4 wheel drives. They talked with residents about possible problems with continued flooding and livestock in flooded pastures. The teams assisted with getting several horses back into their pastures.

Sunday April 6, 2008

The Code 3 team and The Humane Society of Missouri demobilized.

The Code 3 team will be leaving to attend Everything Pets in Ohio.

Tuesday 3-25-08 – As we kept a cautious eye on the river and the flooding situation the Code 3 team was joined by Brian Williams from the Humane Society of Missouri. The team continued to assist the Caruthersville Humane Society staff with the care of the animals being brought in.

The teams rescued another 16 dogs and 22 cats for the day and realizing that we were very quickly filling up the small shelter again we requested another transport of animals to HSMO for the next day.

Wednesday, 3-26-08 - Wednesday was a busy day and it started with filling the transport van that HSMO sent down. We were able to send 39 dogs and 18 cats for a total of 57 animals in a special transport van run by HSMO staff member Patience Scanlon.
We were lucky to be joined by another HSMO investigator Kyle Held. Brian and Kyle both joined the field teams to bring in another 17 dogs and 4 cats bringing the total for the disaster to a total number of 122 animals rescued.

The wildlife was continuing to be pushed into the city in large numbers and the teams assisted with several situations where the wildlife was in trouble.

Thursday, 3-27-08 – We continued to have the assistance of Brian and Kyle from HSMO and the teams continued to watch the rising river and bring in animals being affected by it. The river was due to crest Thursday evening reaching 41.0 FT which while above flood stage would be below the 42 ft that would severely flood the city and surrounding area.

The teams brought in another 13 dogs and 15 cats for the day. Looking forward to the river cresting during the night and the immediate threat being over the Code 3 team and the HSMO team realized that they had yet again all but filled the small Caruthersville shelter. One more transport was arranged for Friday before the two teams pulled out.

Friday, 3–28-08 - The river crested during the night at 41.0 ft and was receding but the teams were still busy while preparing for demobilization. The field teams brought in another 31 dogs and 14 cats finishing all the outstanding calls bringing to total for the disaster to 170 animals rescued.

The last job that he teams assisted with was loading the transports bound for the Humane Society of Missouri with 48 dogs and 9 cats. Bringing the total transported to HSMO for adoption to a total of 162 animals.

The Code 3 team ceased operation in Caruthersville at 2pm and was on the road by 5 pm.

Thursday, March 20, 2008 – We received a call from the Humane Society of Missouri that assistance was needed in the very south eastern part of the state. The Caruthersville Humane Society a small community facility that normally held about 25 animals had doubled that do to flooding from the Mississippi River starting there. Kay flew into Denver with an hours notice, Kurt drove in to Longmont with just about the same notice, meeting with Jim and Goose by 5 PM. With the advance team assembled we jumped into BART and a second truck and started the long drive. We drove through the night stopping for just 3 hours of sleep arriving in Caruthersville Missouri late Friday.

Saturday, 3-22-08 – The team was met by a local Code 3 volunteer Brett Huff and set up base camp at the Caruthersville Humane parking lot, unloading the small truck, horse trailer, boats and other equipment from BART. We met with the wonderful ladies who run the facility, City and County emergency managers, Caruthersville Chief of Police and the levy authority. The river was at 37.1 feet and we were told that we did not have anything to worry about until the river reached 42.0 feet. Our first assignment was to do an assessment of the animals and flooding situation in Pemiscot County. The team broke in to two groups with one going to the northern part of the county and one south meeting in the middle. They discovered that there were already areas beginning to flood and animal issues starting. Cattle are allowed to graze on the levees and those herds were identified incase they needed to be moved or fed in place. Populations of companion animals were also identified incase we needed to evacuate them.

Easter Sunday, 3-23-08 – We continued our assessments with one team going north to Mississippi and New Madrid counties. The other team went to an area flooding to evacuate what animals they could. The team brought in 9 dogs released by owner in flooded area. 7 dogs had to be trapped and Jim and Brett crawled under a house to bring 2 more out. We needed to open space at the Caruthersville shelter for the animals being evacuated and requested assistance from The Humane Society of Missouri. They sent their transport trailer and transport van to take 37 dogs and 11 cats that were already up for adoption to their facility in St. Louis for adoption. This freed up a large part of the shelter for the influx evacuees.

Monday, 3-24-08 – Keeping a wary eye on the river which as of today has reached 41.9 feet the teams have brought in an additional 30 dogs and 4 cats. Bringing the number of animals rescued to 67. The flood water has pushed many animals including wildlife into the city where they are not normally found. The team received a call about a deer down in someone’s back yard. They investigated the call and found a young deer that was wet and tired from braving the withers of the rising Mississippi just needed to warn and rest in the sun. They advised the concerned citizens that the best thing to do was just leave her alone. Going back several hours later they spotted her about a ½ mile down the levy doing just fine. As we go into Tuesday we will continue to assist the community where we can and keep that wary eye to the river which is expected to crest by Thursday at 44.0 ft.

Stay tuned for more updates!

This past week saw Code 3 responding to Kansas and their recent flooding. Initially we were deployed to Iola Kansas where one of our partnering teams (EERU), which is based in Kansas, was brought in to help with their animal issues. As the waters reseeded there we were requested by the Montgomery County Emergency Operations Center to coordinate water rescue in Coffeyville in the southern part of the state. A Code 3 team including our responding volunteers from EERU, ASPCA, Houston SPCA and Missouri were brought in to coordinate the water rescue and recovery efforts. The town of Coffeyville Kansas was hit with the double whammy of flooding and a chemical spill. Rescue teams donned in dry suits and protective gear spent 5 days responding to water and dry land recovery. Coffeyville’s animal shelter was also affected by the flood waters so a temporary shelter for the disaster affected animals was set up at a local baseball field. When the Code 3 team arrived we realized that there needed to be a more adequate set up for the housing of the animals being removed from the disaster area. We gave the local authorities our recommendations which included bringing in an organization that could coordinate and oversee an appropriated disaster shelter. We recommended that the local authorities contact HSUS to help with those efforts. The Humane Society of the United States was brought in to focus on the sheltering of animals so the Code 3 team could focus on the animal recovery efforts.

About 200 animals were recovered out of the affected area. As animals were rescued and brought out of the affected areas local fire decontamination teams helped with washing the animals before they could be taken to the shelter for medical evaluation and care while owners were contacted and the animals reunited. Our teams assisted in the triage efforts by administering IV fluids to animals that were suffering from severe dehydration.

Our teams received local support from the Coffeyville Fire and Emergency Services and the community without which our efforts would not have been successful.

It is always devastating when a disaster hits but for the small town of Holly, Colorado, with a population of about 700, it was even more overwhelming. Holly is an agricultural community that was heavily impacted by the Colorado blizzard of 06-07 and in March they were hit hard by a tornado destroying part of their town.

Holly may not be a huge town with thousands of residents and thousands or even hundreds of pets but they were still in need of temporary housing for displaced pets. Code 3 was contacted by local authorities with the request to help put up temporary housing for their residents to use for their pets until they were able to get back in their homes or make other arrangements for them. A team of three Code 3 responders (Mike “Goose” West, Tiffany Boller, and myself) responded to the call from Holly. No disaster is too big or too small for us to do all that we can to help. We arrived early on April 9^th and got right to work assessing the situation. Their greatest need was temporary housing for the dogs of the town. The team worked to construct 9 dog kennels to house displaced pets and worked with the town volunteers to connect owners with their lost companions.

January 8^th – 14^th

Snow is expected to fall during a Colorado winter, but this year we have had more than our share. It started snowing the week before Christmas and kept up a weekly borage through the first of the year. As the snow piled up livestock producers in southeastern became hampered in their ability to get out to care for their stock. As the state of Colorado realized the grave situation facing the ranchers, the Blizzard of 06-07 was declared a disaster and the National Guard was mobilized and assisted with air drops of hay to stranded cattle. Code 3 was contacted by the Colorado Veterinary Medical Federation to assist and coordinate a volunteer relief effort at a 5,000 acre 8,000 head free range hog farm. The farm, which was split into two facilities, is located in far southeastern part of the state that was buried under several feet of snow with drifts up to 10+ feet. The hogs were trapped in the huts that were strung across the fields of white. Our challenges were many: dig out those hogs that were stranded in the huts, open up access to get food and water to animals, move heavily pregnant females to dry protected shelter to give birth, dig out and bed down the huts to move the pregnant sows to, and locate and care for hundreds of piglets that had been abandoned or orphaned due to the weather.

Code 3 assembled about 40 volunteers from several groups to help in the effort. We spent a little over a week helping the farm staff get back to a point that they were able to manage the operation on their own.