Jim Davis makes his way over the flood-tossed debris inside a home to look for animal survivors.

The Pontchartrain Boulevard Rescue

by Jim Davis

Time was running out.

As rescuers, we were keenly aware that animals still trapped

inside houses in New Orleans had been there for a month. The thought that those animals who had survived Hurricane Katrina’s onslaught might now be dying of starvation renewed our energy – despite a continuous stream of nearly 16-hour work days.

Yet we had seen enough to know that not every “rescue” call was going to have a happy ending.

When fellow volunteer Karlyn Sturmer and I pulled our rescue van to the curb outside the house on Pontchartrain Boulevard, we feared the worst. Our lists indicated that a dog and multiple cats – 10 or more – had been left behind when owner Eugene Autrey had to flee for his life, having just enough time to take two dogs with him and get one cat into the attic.

Autrey had stayed behind when the hurricane hit to care for the pets. He watched the storm pass on TV and then took a nap, thinking the worst was over and they were all safe. He awoke to a different world.

“I looked on the floor and the water was up to the baseboard,” he recalls. “I came into the front room and looked out the window and all I saw was water.”

Then, he says, he opened the front door.

“I let Lake Pontchartrain in, because when I opened the door (the water) was about a foot higher than inside. Everything started floating and I couldn’t shut the door. I started for the cats.”

Unfortunately, Eugene was able to catch only one of the terrified cats. After nearly drowning himself, he was just able to escape to the porch with two struggling dogs, and the trio was picked up by a rescue boat. Eugene was taken to a shelter far from the city, and hadn’t been allowed to come back to his house in the following weeks.

The two cats rescued by Karyln Sturmer and Jim Davis from the house on Pontchartrain Boulevard.

More than a month later, Karlyn and I were the first to enter the devastated house since the flood.

Clad in jeans, rubber boots and leather gloves, we pushed open the front door. In ordinary times, the scene would have been staggering, but we had gotten used to it. Rubble. Piles of it, four feet deep and covered in muck. Mold crawled up the walls, and the smell of decay was overpowering.

The whole house looked as if it had been picked up and shaken by a giant.

We entered the home, climbing over smashed and rotting furniture and household items made slippery by the toxic goo left behind by powerful floodwaters. A quick search of the living room revealed nothing, but when we struggled into the hallway, we were stopped short by a horrific sight – a cat who had died on the pull-down stairs that led into the attic.

Sobered by this grim discovery, we went in search of the cat Autrey had taken to the attic. Checking dark corners and behind the usual stuff of attics, we saw no cat. But, to be safe, we left a dish of wet cat food. If anyone had been hiding there for the past four weeks, they would surely come out for the food. We would check the attic again the next day.

Backtracking down the ladder, we edged our way toward two back bedrooms where a total of nine cats were believed to have been when the flood hit.

Pawing through the rubble, we found several more cats who had not survived the flood. We began to despair that there would be any good news from this house.

Then Karlyn stopped suddenly and held up a hand, calling for silence. She thought she had heard a meow.

I was quick to close the door to the room. If there was a live cat there, we weren’t going to let him get away. We then sifted carefully and methodically through the debris.

“There!” Karlyn exclaimed. “He’s alive.”

Cowering under an overturned dresser was a shrunken calico. Karlyn eased forward, cooing to the emaciated kitty. Suddenly she reached out and snatched up the cat while I held a carrier open. In seconds, the cat was inside.

I carried the precious cargo back through the rubble to the front porch, while Karlyn continued the search. “We’ve got another one,” she shouted, sending me scrambling back with another carrier.

The second cat was soon secured, and before long we moved on to the next address on our list. By the end of the night, the two cats from Pontchartrain Boulevard would be safe in cages at the Alley Cat Allies’ base camp near Bogalusa.

The next day, Karlyn and I were thrilled to find that the food in the attic was gone. A trap was set, and by day’s end we had the third miracle survivor. In subsequent days, traps snared two more, meaning that at least five cats had somehow lived through the flood and weeks without food. They were soon reunited with their owners, Autrey and Patricia Glinn.

Eugene Autrey and Patricia Glinn, reunited with two of their cats rescued by Karlyn and Jim.

Longtime animal rescuers, Eugene and Patricia had mixed feelings when they were reunited with their surviving pets – they were delighted to see them, but devastated about the ones who had been lost.

For Karlyn Sturmer and I, the house on Pontchartrain Boulevard, with all of its highs and lows, is permanently etched in our memories.

We will never forget the cats who didn’t make it. But we also will never forget the ones who did.

Photos by Karlyn Sturmer and Jim Davis. 

Volunteers and support for Alley Cat Allies rescue work in Louisiana are still needed.