In the devastating wake of Hurricane Helene, infrastructure damage and electricity outages have left animal shelters in western NC in an emergency situation. These shelters are without power, surrounded by flooding, and losing refrigerated medicines by the minute. All hands are on deck to make sure every animal is evacuated to safety. With the help of our friends at BISSELL Pet Foundation, we recently drove out to meet an emergency evacuation plane on the tarmac at the Winston-Salem airport.

We opened every open door in our facility and available foster home to displaced pets from the Asheville Humane Society. They are in amazingly good spirits after the chaos of the past several days. Every cat and dog was immediately greeted with treats, toys, warm dry beds, and the care of our veterinary team.

We have been deeply moved to help get these pets out of harm's way and support our friends at the western NC shelters. Our friends at Asheville Humane Society told the transporters they were overwhelmed with gratitude for the support — and we want to pass that gratitude directly onto you because this effort was only possible because of your generous support.

Right now, we are working hard to help route supplies to counties in need as well as take in more western NC shelter animals over the coming days/weeks. We have supply requests from McDowell, Mitchell, York and Gaston counties, among others. There are more requests coming in as relief efforts are moving along and assessing the damage. Right now transportation is the biggest challenge to getting the supplies into the areas that are cut off.

We will continue to share updates on our social media. Thank you for helping support the pets and people affected by Helene.