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]