Community Chat

[Marp]

Our county just received one of these units, they are called Companion Animal Mobile Equipment Trailer. Did not even know they existed. Yeah us! I would never leave my animals to go to a shelter so I really like this idea. The news report said there are 45 large cages and 15 small cages and they are fully equipped with food, water, bowls, air filtration, etc.

*******— When a flood or other natural disaster strikes an area, some residents would rather weather the storm and risk their lives than leave their beloved pets behind.

Emergency shelters don't accept animals for health and safety reasons, but now there's an alternative.

***** County recently became the latest county in North Carolina to receive a mobile shelter for pets called a Companion Animal Mobile Equipment Trailer.

The units are designed to respond quickly to a disaster area and be set up next to a school or other facility sheltering people. That way, evacuated residents can bring their pets with them.

“We've had folks tell us that, ‘If the pet doesn't go, I'm not going to go,'” said ******* ****, director of ***** County Emergency Services. “For a lot of folks, their pets are their family. It would be like leaving a member of the family behind.”

The Federal Emergency Management Agency in 2006 was given the authority to develop the Pet Evacuation and Transportation Standards Act, which requires government agencies to accommodate pets in their plans to evacuate residents during disasters.

The N.C. Division of Emergency Management responded by creating the mobile shelter program. Equipped with cages, a generator and supplies to support up to 50 animals, the shelters provide temporary housing for pets in the same location as their owners.

Health and safety regulations require separate entrances and ventilation systems for people and animals.

**** said there are now 24 of the trailers spread across the state.

“Ours is designed to be shared with any county in the state,” he said. “If you operate a normal shelter for people, a lot of them have pets they don't have any way of caring for.”

The $15,125 cost of *****'s trailer was paid for by federal Homeland Security funds funneled through the state Division of Emergency Management, Cabe said.

The mobile shelters have other uses.

In August 2008, Lincoln County used three of the kennels to temporarily house dogs seized from an illegal puppy mill.