Animal Flood Victims Need A Home

Tuesday, July 10th 2007, 5:00 pm

By: News On 6

In Bartlesville, officials at the local animal shelter are still coping with flooding. Floodwaters forced them out of their facility and theyâ€™ve relocated to the county fairgrounds. The News On 6â€™s Steve Berg reports there is just one problem with that, the fair starts next month so about 100 animals are still looking for a home.

Flooded out of their regular shelter, dozens of dogs have inundated the Washington County fairgrounds in nearby Dewey.

"It's quite a big ordeal to get all the animals out, and then if we didn't have this facility to put the animals in then we'd really be up a creek," said Washington County SPCA director Anita Stepp.

But itâ€™s bad timing, the flood happened just a few weeks before the county fair. So director Anita Stepp says the displaced dogs will have to move back to the shelter.

"We're looking at trying to get the old shelter cleaned up and sanitized, disinfected, so we can get back in there," Stepp said.

That will be harder than it sounds. She says the kennels are sturdy enough, but the rest of the office is in bad shape.

"The mold has already started growing so we've got to kill that, and just pull out all the cabinets and woodwork, drywall, all that. So it's a big job," said Stepp.

This is the second major flood for the shelter in 20 years, along with several minor floods. Even the threat of flooding forces them to evacuate, and that has happened twice in just the past month.

"We can't wait to see if we're going to flood because our driveway is the first, it gets flooded and then we can't get out," Stepp said.

The shelter, which is run by a non-profit group, is now trying to raise money to buy new land and build a new shelter. If you'd like to help out, you can call the Washington County SPCA at 918-336-1577, or visit their website, www.wcspca.org.

Watch the video: Animal Flood Victims

For more flooding information, check out our STORM ZONE web page.

Related story:

6/30/2007 Flooding Forces Evacuations