By Michael Sangiacomo
Plain Dealer (Cleveland)
Copyright 2006 Plain Dealer Publishing Co.
Animal rescue workers from four counties converged on Lake County to rescue more than 50 trapped pets Friday and Saturday.
Some team members concentrated Saturday on a flooded condominium complex off Main Street in Painesville.
Just when they thought they had rescued all the pets, the team got a call that there were three more stranded cats in one of the condos, prompting Kathy Evan and Katherine Holland to slip back into rubber boots and launch a row boat into mucky, stagnant water.
They returned shortly with three cardboard boxes that emitted muffled meows.
“We got all three of them,” Evan yelled from the boat.
“Awesome,” responded Lisa Liggett from shore. “That’s every animal out of here.”
The pets were taken to an abandoned motel on Main Street in Painesville where the Lake County Humane Society had set up temporary headquarters. The pets were reunited with their owners, who had phoned the Humane Society for help.
Humane Society spokeswoman Cindy Olds said she and fellow staffers and volunteers were impressed with the skill and efficiency of the 12 Animal Disaster Team volunteers from chapters in Cuyahoga, Medina, Summit and Lorain counties.
“They’ve been trained for just this kind of rescue work,” she said. “They just came in here and showed us what we needed to do.”
Olds said after hearing what happened to pets in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, they were determined that local animals would not meet the same fate.
Any Lake County resident missing an animal can call 1-440-221-8775.