Instead of bickering over who to save, animal versus human, why don't we learn from this? I'm serious, what's done is done, the animals that were abondoned will hopefully find their way to helping hands, if not, I don't really want to think about it, it makes me want to cry, and the ferrets here don't need that undo stress from their shelter mommy... Anyway, my point is... Look around your home. Are you prepared? If you, regardless of where you live, had to evacuate immediately, can you get out with your ferrets and your other animals? We should use this tragedy to learn from, instead of repeating history. Disaster can strike anywhere at anytime, the only thing we can do is be prepared. If we are prepared for the worst, then we might eliminate the forced split second decisions between human and animal. I'm saying this to eveyone, if you're disabled, with only one pet or a hundred, doesn't matter, whatever your lifestyle may be, you should be prepared. What does prepared mean? Have a plan of action, have something near the cage of your ferrets or other animals that you can throw them into. Comfort isn't a priority during a disaster, but life or death is. Have enough medicine for you and your animals, for at least two weeks, easy to find and get to, maybe have an evacuation bag with all the necessities already in there, so all you have to do is grab and run. Meds need to be refrigerated? Have ice packs in the freezer ready to throw in that bag. Have a plan, where will you go, how will you get there, who can you call for help. A fire won't wait for you to make up your mind, you should have all of this planned out beforehand. Do a practice run, try to get everything you need in your car within an hour. See what happens. Just my ever so opiniated two cents October www.renoferrets.org [Posted in FML issue 4996]