Changing seasons at the Sandy pet shelter

The former Pet Safe Coalition wrote this post in early 2013, while its volunteers still ran the Nassau County Emergency Pet Shelter. It opened with the calendar: Sandy arrived as the county prepared for Halloween, and the shelter was still open for the holidays and into Valentine's week.

What the group said

• Its volunteers staffed the shelter from the day it opened in October 2012 and had cared for 515 animals in all. Nearly 300 animals were on site at the New Year.
• Volunteers lived on site around the clock, and others traveled across the country at their own cost.
• Unlike other shelters that had declared an end to the disaster, it said the group was first on the scene and the last organization still working at this shelter.

The post ended with a list of people it said should work faster to get residents home: insurance companies, repair firms, building inspectors, landlords, pet owners, and public officials. These are the group's own claims and opinions. Other accounts give a slightly different total for the shelter. See the donate page and a workshop report.