44% of the people who didn’t evacuate for Hurricane Katrina stayed because they didn’t want to abandon their pets.
In 2006, the Senate passed the the Pet Evacuation & Transportation Standards (PETS) Act, which authorizes FEMA to rescue, shelter and care for people with pets and service animals. This could save not only the lives of pets, but people too — about 44% of the 100,000 who did not evacuate stayed because they didn’t want to leave their pets behind, according to a report by the Fritz Institute.