Community steps up to help flooded animal shelter

Click here for updates on this story

    ST. LOUIS, MO (KMOV) — There are only 28 shelter dogs left at CARE STL after a plumbing issue flooded half of the building Friday.

“We came in yesterday and the dogs were standing in about 2 or 3 inches of backed up sewer water,” said Cate Redfren with CARE STL.

CARE STL takes in animals who have been abandoned, surrendered or taken by animal control. It’s a no kill, open admission shelter and Friday night, mostly because of the cold, it was packed full of 60 dogs when the flooding began.

“As far as we are aware, there is a large blockage under the building and, if we are not able to get it out with jets, we are going to have to dig it out,” Redfren said as a plumber worked in the building behind her.

So the volunteers at CARE STL took to social media, pleading for help fostering the dogs for the weekend.

“We needed 10 dogs absolutely out of the shelter last night,” said Redfren. “20 would make us feel comfortable. People in two hours stepped up to our appeal on Facebook and we got 32 dogs out by 8:30 last night.”

The help kept coming in the morning. While News 4 was there filming this story, four people showed up to take laundry home to wash.

“As one of our staff said last night, now we know that we can handle a mass evacuation and the city steps up for us when we need them,” Redfern said.

32 dogs will spend the weekend with a temporary family, but the damage could be costly. The shelter has started what they call a “drain the shelter fund” on their website for donations.

“The biggest thing that CARE would like is for our St. Louis community to know is how grateful we are for how you stepped up last night,” said Redfren. “It’s incredibly touching. There are a lot of times when we feel we are doing this work alone and we are not seen. We saw yesterday that we are seen and supported and that has incredible value to our moral and to our dogs, and we are so grateful for that.”

Please note: This content carries a strict local market embargo. If you share the same market as the contributor of this article, you may not use it on any platform.