This is Susie Lee for the embattled (by two major hurricanes, most recently Dennis) Ferret and Dove Sanctuary, Inc. We have finally got our electricity back on after five days of not even being able to run a gosh-doggoned FAN! Every day and night, we have been taking out and wetting down each and every ferret to try to keep their body-heat from critical, we've managed to get extra ice on two of the 90-degree days and put pans and pots of ice over each of 31 cages with 58 ferrets, keeping the rooms darkened and windows opened and I'd take the broomstick-handle to spin the blades on the cieling fans, less-so during the mornings, while Wes and I were changing their cages and letting out everyone in their usual shifts, but with a wide-shallow plastic cage-bottom with about half an inch of water for the braver ones to wade in...not a great picnic for the humans to be changing 31 cages in blistering, unreleived heat especially when HE can take off his shirt and I can't!...I'm gonna switch to being a boy next life... Little Prince Albert Ferret was rushed to one of the three vets in town that understood ferrets which happened to be open by themselves running a generator to power two floor fans, their laptop, and their medication-refridgerator; the vet at Safe Harbor Animal Hospital saved Little Prince Abert's life, with theophylline and baytril for severe chest congestion(yes, he's 9 and a halfyears old, and frail, but his cage-mate, Jazzmine Miss Boss is a much heartier and older 13 years old). The other one that almost went into heat-stroke/shock is a diabetic, Jasper CinnamonCoat, which he was just barely pulled out of being TOO listless three times. Most of the others stayed verrrry still, the two very youngest were panting at one point from not having the sense to be as still-lying as the older and wiser ferrets and a re-wetdown pulled them through. Every one of 58 ferrets has been heaving relieved little sighs of newly air-conditioned contentment. Phseew, and us, too! ... every little furry faces is okay, accounted for, and two have made it by the skin of my skin. Doggoned hurricane clipped us with it's eyewall, all but knocking down every power substation in town and cracking many poor trees clean in half at the levels of the tops of the single-storied houses' roofs. Looked like two embedded tornadoes whooshed through with it, very close to, but not right at us. But we are bound and determined to NEVER put these ferrets through Floridian heat ever again! Help us get a generator for the Sanctuary, for the Ferrets! Our web-page has three "make a donation" buttons which we checked out with the (real) PayPal by phone before we got the power back on, so either by that means or directly, send what you feel you can to the santuary to help the ferrets make it in some better comfort than this last week-long nightmare. Everything with a return-address will get a thank-you And a tax reciept. Send checks or money orders(made out) to... The Ferret And Dove Sanctuary, Inc. 3815 Tom Lane Drive, Pensacola, Florida, 32504 or use the Paypal donatio buttons that are here... http://www.angelfire.com/theforce/ferret_rescuer/index.html [Posted in FML issue 4939]