Shelter pets displaced by Hurricane Ian arrive in Delaware
NEW CASTLE, Del. (CBS) -- Pets displaced by Hurricane Ian are now arriving in the Philadelphia area. A flight carrying dozens of dogs and cats landed in New Castle, Delaware, on Monday.
Help is exactly what's going on here. The Brandywine Valley SPCA has worked together with the Naples Humane Society, Petco Love and Wings of Rescue to fly shelter pets from storm-ravaged areas in Florida to the Delaware Valley in the hopes they'll be adopted here.
"They were in shelter prior to the storm hitting," Second Chance program manager Laura Page said. "These are not animals whose owners are looking for them. They are actually animals that were in case and ready for adoption."
The partnership gives the Florida shelter pets a chance to be adopted and it will allow shelters in Florida to rescue and re-unite pets in areas devastated by Hurricane Ian.
Of course, shelters themselves are often damaged in natural disasters too.
"Often they do," Page said. "In particular, Highlands County is a very poor rural shelter that sustained a significant amount of damage. So the kitties and the dogs that we're getting from that particular shelter may not have had another chance. They had really nowhere else to go."
Now for the info animal lovers really need -- 51 cats and 15 dogs were flown to Delaware and the vast majority will be available for adoption on Tuesday.
"People will be able to see them as soon as noon tomorrow at our New Castle shelter and our West Chester campus," Page said.
"These are highly adoptable pets that because of the devastation in Florida, people aren't going to be able to adopt a pet right now," Brandywine Valley SPCA director of marketing Sara Smith said. "They're barely taking care of themselves. They can come up here and find a family and have really happy lives."