Helene will have long-lasting effect on animal-adoption agencies

DOG DAYS: Volunteer Connie Kopp greets a canine during the Blue Ridge Humane Society’s free vaccine clinic in November. Photo courtesy of BRHS

When Tropical Storm Helene hit the area on Sept. 27, floodwaters from the Swannanoa River destroyed Brother Wolf Animal Rescue’s adoption center on Glendale Avenue. The Asheville Humane Society was spared that kind of physical damage, but the nonprofit was unable to accept new animals at its adoption center for nearly two months due to a lack of water.

The two organizations ended up transporting hundreds of dogs and cats, and even a few rabbits, to shelters in other cities and states, including South Carolina, Virginia and Massachusetts. They also relied on local foster families to take in animals they couldn’t house.

Other Western North Carolina animal shelters, including Henderson County’s Blue Ridge Humane Society (BRHS) and Charlie’s Angels Animal Rescue of Fletcher, were back in business within a few weeks of Helene. But those agencies faced an increased need for veterinary care, pet food and supplies and other forms of assistance. 

Officials from local animal shelters agree that Helene’s impact will continue to be felt in 2025 and beyond, with the need for medical care and food still high. Atop that, the agencies are seeing far fewer adoptions and an increase in strays, partly because of the number of people who were displaced from their homes or moved out of the area.

“We certainly know that even though running water has returned and things are starting to look a little bit more normal, the need in the community is still there,” says Jen Walter, interim executive director of the Asheville Humane Society (AHS). “Those challenges that people were experiencing in the immediate aftermath of the hurricane are still present. So we want to make sure that we’re still able to support our community members that have pets.”

Plans to rebuild

On Sept. 26, with the Swannanoa River already cresting, the staff at Brother Wolf  decided it had to evacuate its animal adoption center before Helene hit.

“We put out a social media plea and a plea to our fosters and volunteers and asked people to emergency foster animals,” says Brooke Fornea, the nonprofit’s director of strategic development. “We had about 130 animals evacuated from the building in two hours before the hurricane hit.”

Fornea and others figured Helene would cause some flooding, bringing perhaps a few inches of water into the shelter. The reality proved far worse.

When staff members finally were able to get close to the building to survey the damage, only the very top was visible above the water. “That’s when we knew that our adoption center, our retail store that had our offices and our thrift store, which were all in that same little corridor, were all completely closed and that nothing would be salvageable,” Fornea says.

After checking in with every person who was fostering one of its animals — no easy task when power and cell and internet service were down or unreliable throughout the region — Brother Wolf’s staff started contacting partner shelters in areas that weren’t affected by the storm to find space for its dogs, cats and small animals.

A week after the storm, the group started transporting animals to shelters in places as far away as Massachusetts. More than 200 animals, including the 130 that had been evacuated from the shelter, were in foster homes at the time. All were sent to other shelters and have since been adopted, Fornea says.

In the aftermath of the storm, Brother Wolf launched a mobile medical unit that traveled to hard-hit areas and provided veterinary care to more than 1,200 animals. The group also launched a program called Stay Together aimed at providing vet care to animals injured in the storm.

“We’ve done things like provide amputations for animals that have had broken legs, all kinds of things, so that people keep their animals,” Fornea says.

And working with small, municipal and rural shelters in Buncombe and surrounding agencies, the group was able to restart its foster care program.

“We are so passionate about animals, so we really didn’t stop our work,” Fornea says.

Since last month, Brother Wolf has been operating out of ASPCA’s spay and neuter clinic on Heritage Drive with plans to be there for a year. While the space doesn’t have a shelter, it allows the group to provide medical care, run the foster program and raise funds to build a new shelter. It plans to launch a capital campaign soon.

The temporary space isn’t yet open to the public.

“Building a shelter is much more expensive than building just a regular facility,” Fornea explains. “We’ve been told it’s kind of like building a minihospital, because all of the materials have to be impervious, and you have to be able to clean everything and all of that. We are doing our due diligence of getting all of the  pieces in place so that we really understand how much money we’ll need to raise — how much it will cost to do a building and then also trying to find land to purchase.”

Waiting for water

Like the rest of Asheville, the Humane Society’s adoption center on Forever Friend Lane had no water service for weeks after Helene hit.

“Caring for hundreds of animals inside of a shelter without running water is pretty near impossible,” Walter says. “So we had to shift our focus from bringing animals into the shelter to sheltering them in the community.”

AHS asked people who found stray pets to keep them and take care of them while the shelter was unable to take in animals. The organization provided supplies and resources.

And starting Sept. 30, the nonprofit transported about 150 of the 200 animals that were in the adoption center the day the storm hit to other shelters. The remainder couldn’t be moved because of contagious illnesses or other problems.

MORE THAN NINE LIVES: Since Tropical Storm Helene, the Asheville Hu- mane Society has transported 97 cats to shelters outside Western North Car- olina. Photo courtesy of AHS

The transport flights were coordinated through the Bissell Pet Foundation, a Michigan-based group that provides support, including crisis and disaster response, for animal welfare organizations. The dogs, cats and small animals were initially flown to Winston-Salem before being transported to shelters in other states.

The shelter was able to start taking in some new animals once nonpotable water was restored in late October, Water says. But it wasn’t until drinkable water was flowing again on Nov. 18 that it was able to resume regular operations.

By late December, the number of dogs in the shelter was virtually the same as it had been a year earlier (116 in 2024 and 115 in 2023), she says. The shelter had fewer cats (30 in 2024 and 98 in 2023) due to more long-distance transport opportunities being available in the aftermath of  Helene.

“Since the hurricane, 97 cats have been transported to other shelters,” Walter says. “During the same time period in 2023, 34 cats were transported to other shelters. The transport opportunities available for dogs have allowed us to operate at the same capacity as last year, despite a significant increase in stray hold periods and a decrease in adoptions.”

The transports allowed AHS to shift its focus to providing community support, she says.

The Humane Society distributed more than 100,000 pounds of pet food to those in need, most of it donated by Seattle-based Greater Good Charities. The group also provided free and low-cost veterinary care to more than 1,000 animals at the Buncombe County Animal Shelter, which is in the same complex as the Humane Society.

Henderson County’s BRHS similarly found that the biggest impact of Helene was on its community support services. For instance, the organization fielded 532 calls and texts to the helpline in November, up from the few hundred it gets in a typical month, says Executive Director Angela Prodrick

“We’ve helped thousands of people through pet food assistance, supply assistance, giving away crates,” she explains. “We had a free vaccine clinic [in November] and we’re having another one [in January]. We are just trying to support people who are lacking the means right now that they would have had otherwise or find themselves in a different situation, both job wise or housing wise, where they need extra assistance in order to hold on to their pet.”

AHS’ Walter expects food and medical care needs to remain high in 2025 as the area continues to recover from the storm’s devastation. Additionally, AHS is working on getting its adoption numbers back to normal.

“We know that housing concerns are definitely very real in the community right now,” she says. “And that doesn’t just affect adopters, but it also affects fosters. A lot of people are moving from houses into apartments or staying with family members, and that affects their ability to be able to adopt a new pet or to foster. We’re looking at different ways that we can encourage adoption and fostering and kind of reevaluating the way that we handle those.”

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About Justin McGuire
Justin McGuire is a UNC Chapel Hill graduate with more than 30 years of experience as a writer and editor. His work has appeared in The Sporting News, the (Rock Hill, SC) Herald and various other publications. Follow me @jmcguireMLB

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One thought on “Helene will have long-lasting effect on animal-adoption agencies

  1. JT4784

    Not a single word about the elephant in the room -spay and neuter. That’s where capital funding should go. That is how you slow the endless flow of kittens and puppies. All else is closing the barn door after the horses have run out.

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