Palm Springs woman shares story of saving people, animals during Harvey
On the first day of fall, Jane Garrison said she was glad to be back in her Palm Springs home after a summer filled with saving lives in major storms like Hurricanes Harvey and Irma.
“I’ve always been an animal lover,” Garrison said. “I’ve always wanted to help the underdog.”
Before Hurricane Harvey, she said she remembers heading out to New Orleans 12 years ago for relief for another storm, saving 2,000 pets on her own after Hurricane Katrina.
“I was sleeping in the front seat of my car,” she said. “I was sleeping maybe two to three hours a night. I was going with hip waders through the waters. I was climbing onto rooftops, going under houses when I could, breaking into houses and never knowing I could get so good with a crowbar. But you learn quickly when you know an animal is trapped inside.”
She said her work with Hurricane Katrina is a reason she was called again, this time to help hundreds of animals in Texas and Florida.
“(With Harvey), similar to Katrina, the flood surge was causing animals to be trapped in flooded homes,” Garrison said. “There was a very large number of people on the ground, who were going out and trying to rescue animals. But a lot of them had no experience with rescuing animals after flood surge or after hurricanes. So, what was happening was they were going into these homes, and if they didn’t see the animal right away, they were making the determination that these animals were dead.”
But after saving 300 to 500 animals between both storms, Garrison said she’s grateful for all the help she got and is always ready to answer the call again.
“You make a difference for the animals, clearly,” she said. “But you also make a difference for the people.”
Garrison said disaster relief technology has improved in the last decade. While dealing with Harvey, she used Zello, a dispatch app to help communicate with rescue groups.
She also recommends microchipping, and never leaving any animals behind in a natural disaster.
