SAN LEON — If it wasn’t for a veterinarian’s act of kindness, the animals at the Bay Area SPCA might have had to ride out Hurricane Rita at the San Leon shelter.
The organization simply did not have the means to evacuate its animals, and attempts to find foster homes were not successful, said Cathy Tway, a member of the board of directors.
Then Dr. Helen Weishuhn of the Riverside Veterinary Hospital in Smithville called to ask if she could help.
Weishuhn called the Galveston County Sheriff’s Office to find out what was happening to cattle and horses. She was afraid of a repeat of what happened during Hurricane Katrina.
The dispatcher told her she didn’t know, Weishuhn said, and gave her the number of the Bay Area Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.
She called and found out that the group would not be able to evacuate the more than 100 animals in its care.
Weishuhn offered to help.
“We just tripped across this,” she said. “It was purely an accident, but it was an accident that was meant to be.”
In about two hours, Weishuhn was able to round up a group of volunteers, a 28-foot gooseneck trailer and a dog trailer.
The trailers arrived at the shelter in San Leon on the evening of Sept. 21 and began loading up the cats, dogs, rabbits, parrots, gerbils and mice, said Travis Demarest, director of the Bay Area SPCA.
The only animals to stay behind were the shelter’s fish, barn animals and emus, which are hard to catch, said Tway.
As the convoy was about to leave, Weishuhn looked at her watch. It was 10:22 p.m., and she thought the volunteers would be able to make it back to her clinic east of Austin by 3:30 a.m. Sept. 22.
Instead, they would reach the clinic at 3:30 p.m.
While stuck in traffic, the volunteers would get out of the trucks and spray the animals down with water.
There was only one casualty during the long, hot trip: a white mouse.
Most of the animals were at the Smithville clinic, Tway said.
The mother of one of the clinic’s employees was keeping the birds.
The animals were scheduled to return to San Leon on Thursday night, Weishuhn said, except for a few that were adopted while staying in Smithville.
Members of the Bay Area SPCA said the group is grateful.
“It’s a great story,” Demarest said. “It shows how people come together to help each other.”
