You can contact the ASPCA in NJ and in NY to ask about area shelters,
but also check the North Shore Animal League on Long Island which was
just in the news minutes ago. It made arrangements with the military,
and an old Naval base has been turned into a makeshift extra huge
animal shelter. Pet Smart donated an incredible number of supplies
but individuals have also been donating both supplies and money for
vet care and more.

All those places need donations, especially of money, as do the
charities working on long-term shelter of humans, recovery and
rebuilding. Congress has not allocated FEMA anywhere near the level
that the rebuilding will cost (with a current estimate of about 36
Billion -- with a "B" dollars of damage in NJ and NYS ***EACH***) and
on the news yesterday they said that some people have their insurance
companies refusing to provide money because the waters were "mingled"
(waters from flooding mixed with overflow sewer waters -- as typically
happens in a flood) so at least one of the insurance companies is then
not providing funds even to people who paid for flood insurance.

I was told a few days ago that even though the worst of the tree
downing and damage in our large condo complex is done now, the total
clean-up will probably take through December. Our train line is still
out but may be for months; the gov't is helping with buses.

Of course, that is nothing like the areas along the Jersey shore, some
parts of NYC, some portions of the South Shore of Long Island and Fire
Island, of course, and even some locations in CT near the shore that
did not get hit quite as hard but still took terrible damage. Many
homes are destroyed and a month after Sandy many places that might be
salvageable are without power because electricians need to check the
salt water damage to the wiring since that can create a fire hazard
(and there have been home and neighborhood fires due to power being
turned on in some places which electricians did not check). There are
places that will take a great many months got back online and I know
some hospitals will not be up fully till late Winter or early Spring,
apparently with some still using mobile emergency rooms and/or mobile
surgical rooms but usually now with other hospitals taking up the
needs.

People from all over the nation are still in the area helping out as is
the military, and power trucks from many places are still here and will
be for a while. Even locally they are still putting up some new poles
and lines in places that were earlier repaired to "good enough for now"
levels.

Sometimes even here because of the storm a person sees a spooky thing
or a weird thing in the general area, like a large pine with a partly
broken trunk that is leaning toward a small house it could squash but
which the owners have not yet had removed for whatever reason, and a
log that is about 5 feet long and close to 3 feet in diameter being
held up about 12 feet above ground by two small trees. The log is
ripped at one end and cut at the end closest to what remains of its
tree. It looks like someone tried to save the rest of the tree by
cutting the break but did not realize that the log being removed would
wind up suspended in the air. That of course is nothing like cabin
cruiser through a living room, or a house washed out to sea, or...
(unless someone walks beneath that log at the wrong time)

I found out that the town where I was raised was flooded in the storm
but the photos from there do not look as bad as when Dad had to borrow
a rowboat to check on our store when I was a kid. (And I do recall a
cabin cruiser in someone's LR from that storm back when along with a
home which had its whole third floor blown off and sitting upside down
like a huge dingy on the front lawn) That area is about 80 miles from
NYC, still in the Sandy region but in a much more mild portion of that
storm's region.

One of our neighbors who is a retired emergency storm response engineer
has seen some things with this storm that he has never seen before,
like high tension lines that whipped like a jumprope for so many hours
that they completely unravelled.

A few people here know but in general I was not ready to say it
close to the event: I wound up almost needing hospitalization from
hypothermia and resultant dehydration after Sandy, but got through
it okay without, largely because we had hot water (though no heat
and no stove or burners) and by then hot foods including soups became
available due to one part of town getting back on line before the rest
of us. The pleasantly weird outcome of that unpleasantness is that it
actually brought down my eye pressure into the levels I typically have
after glaucoma surgeries. I can not imagine the people who are still
are still trying to tough it out in homes without power, but there ARE
people doing that. They are on the local news each night. Locally we
have been in the teens and 20s at night; those closer to the shore will
be a bit warmer but only a bit.

So, if you want to give more donations either from the goodness of your
hearts or because you want more tax deductions for April then, please,
also consider the animal shelters in need after Sandy, and the people
still in need, too, because this will be a long term recovery and
rebuilding situation.

In this region I think most of the traffic signals are up now though
we saw a few still not working yesterday. Drivers became especially
courteous toward others ever since the lights went down, and neighbors
are still helping neighbors. I know that a friend of friend is in a
building in NYC that still does not have elevators or power for the
water pumping so the younger people are all carrying water upstairs for
older neighbors so they can drink and can use bottles to flush. Despite
the incorrect impression many people in some parts of the nation have
about those in NYS, NYS, and NJ people around here are for the most
part good and kind people in the ways that matter. Of course, anyone
who has been on the FML in the last twenty years, or who used the FHL
during its first ten years benefitted from people in this region being
generous with their help. BTW, if you have not seen it in any of the
many places where it has been:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kEBjbpWSy4Q
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uHDoj6tZw5I
http://www.aspca.org/About-Us/contact-us
http://www.njspca.org/adopt_animal_shelters_nj.htm
http://supportourshelters.org
http://www.animalleague.org/?gclid=CLKPwZz697MCFUOK4AodqGQAmw

Sukie (not a vet)  Ferrets make the world a game.

Recommended ferret health links:
http://pets.groups.yahoo.com/group/ferrethealth/
http://ferrethealth.org/archive/
http://www.miamiferret.org/
http://www.ferrethealth.msu.edu/
http://www.ferretcongress.org/
http://www.trifl.org/index.shtml
http://homepage.mac.com/sukie/sukiesferretlinks.html
all ferret topics:
http://listserv.ferretmailinglist.org/archives/ferret-search.html

"All hail the procrastinators for they shall rule the world tomorrow."
(2010, Steve Crandall)

A nation is as free as the least within it.

[Posted in FML 7627]