Coping with Catastrophe: LSU dean says planning would have helped initial recovery from the most costly hurricanes

BATON ROUGE, LA. — When the last of an estimated 2,000 displaced pets are finally reunited with owners or adopted from Louisiana State University (LSU), Dr. Michael Groves will be signing off on this tab.

Veterinary medicine's response to hurricanes Katrina and Rita ranked at the top of this LSU dean's list. Dr. Michael Groves reports that while the storms put financial pressure on the small veterinary school, DVMs stepped up in big ways.

While the battering and flooding from hurricanes Katrina and Rita have been dubbed the most costly in U.S. history, the price tag to the veterinary school, nestled two hours northwest of the serious Katrina flooding, isn't trivial.

Excluding tons in supply donations, the bill to care for rescued pets likely will amount to about one-sixth of the $5.9-million veterinary teaching hospital's annual operating budget — $800,000, without tip.

The gratuity is more likely calculated in the vast experience LSU officials learned from this disaster, and the tireless efforts of professors, staff and volunteer veterinarians in helping these animals, Groves smiles. He and LSU colleagues plan to share their experiences in an effort to better prepare for natural disasters.

In an exclusive interview with DVM Newsmagazine, Groves talked about the successes and challenges posed by these hurricanes as well as the unanticipated role a small veterinary school would play in the rescue and recovery of animals following a forced evacuation under an international microscope.

"I think our government needs to realize that there are twice as many households with pets as there are children," Groves says. "I have been told that a child is more likely to have a pet than a father living at home. People would refuse to leave their homes, and some died in refusing to leave their pets. If the government was going to get one message from the veterinary community, then it's people should be allowed to bring their pets with them if safe. It is not right to make people abandon their pets," Groves says.

As the radar images of Katrina lit up national newscasts in late August, it wasn't enough to foreshadow the flooding catastrophe yet to unfold.

"No one ever told a veterinary school that you would ever have to do something like this," he explains. "We are not an animal shelter. If you were to walk up to a major human hospital in a metropolitan area and say we are going to bring you a bunch of refugees and we are not going to give you any money, and you are going to have to deal with volunteers and anything you have out of your own pocket, well, it would be horrifying."

In the initial stages of the recovery, LSU veterinarians Drs. David Senior and Becky Adcock, and area DVMs Patrick Thistlethwaite and Paula Drone, walked over to a donated LSU Agcenter's Parker Coliseum with a table, an empty building and a plan. The end result turned into the largest makeshift animal shelter in history.

Lessons learned

Two days after the storm, 500 animals unloaded at LSU. On Sept. 12, the steady influx of displaced pets peaked at 1,287 animals. The university's numbers would ebb and flow and slowly recede as pets were either reunited or adopted out. The shelter was slated to close on Oct. 15.

"We were overwhelmed," Groves recalls. "All the staff and faculty stepped up big time. They were working 12 or more hours, seven days a week," he says.

"You get exposed to the human misery and the horrible conditions that happened to people's pets. You see the misery of the people and misery of the animals. The upside is the outpouring of kindness and generosity that I have witnessed by the veterinary profession, and I mean veterinarians and veterinary technicians and those working in veterinary practices."

The costs were also piling up along with the lost hours of sleep.

"The other thing was that I just saw money flying out the door. Our ICU costs quadrupled. The number of patients quadrupled, too," he says.

"I think you know enough about veterinary schools that you live and die by your clinical hospital. We can't just say we are going to close up our hospital and do everything for free. We depend on that revenue to keep the school afloat. It is no different than a human medical school."

Despite the financial worries, donations flowed. The first check was from a Manhattan physician and the contribution, named in honor of a beloved pet, christened the Spirit Fund. It swelled to $300,000 since the storm.

At best, Groves believes they will break even from the costs of drugs and supplies.

"I think we will probably not lose any money. What we are not ever going to recoup, and it's our donation, is that it has taken three weeks to a month of people's complete life to take this on."

Grading veterinary response

Despite initial criticism of late VMAT deployment, Groves final grade on veterinary medicine's overall response came in at A+.

He cites the tremendous self-sacrifice in time and resources from volunteer veterinarians and veterinary technicians from across the country. Veterinary school deans rallied to offer assistance.

Some standouts include the efforts of Dr. Kelli Ferris, who came from North Carolina State University (NCSU) with a team and 100 cages to assist. Veterinary teams from Kansas State University, Cornell University and Auburn University also converged on Baton Rouge. The University of Florida (UF) School of Veterinary Medicine offered experts to help move financial reimbursement through the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) bureaucracy. Last year, UF claimed a trivial $7,000 in reimbursement money from the trio of hurricanes to tear through the Sunshine state, and it still required 50 to 60 pages of FEMA paperwork.

Help in adopting displaced pets was also offered by the University of Georgia and NCSU. Officials estimate the school's shelter will end up with about 300 to 400 unclaimed animals to adopt.

For Groves the lessons are just as much about the giving nature of humanity, especially in times of adversity.

"It's amazing to see the love that people express, and when confronted with a challenge step up to the plate. It brings tears to your eyes. The retired dean of the Arts and Sciences Department walks in here and gives me a check for $2,000. And later that day, I saw her in a t-shirt, sweating like a pig, and cleaning animal cages and walking dogs."

Displaced growth

When the last of the animals depart LSU and the world's attention is diverted to other matters, the reality is this university and its city changed.

Consider this: The population of Baton Rouge literally doubled overnight.

The city was about 400,000 people strong, excluding the greater Baton Rouge area. "Permanently, it will grow by 100,000 people," Groves says. "A real-estate agent said in the first week after the storm, their inventory went down by 60 percent. They only have about 40 percent of home inventories left."

Experts from Washington D.C. were even called in to help city planners to sort through traffic gridlock.

"The traffic has just become horrendous. The first few weeks, you would go to some place like Wal-Mart or Target and there are just whole sections gone — lamps, pillows, sheets. People had to start from scratch," he says.

In the end: "New Orleans will never be the same. Baton Rouge will never be the same as we knew it," he says.

"When you think about, New Orleans has given us so much of our culture, jazz, blues. It's southern Louisiana where they have had this unusual history of mix of people all blended together to make this unique cuisine, lifestyle, music and art. To think that we would wipe this city off the face of the earth and write it off would be a crime. I hope they rebuild."