Animals in the WUI*:
The power of preparedness
*Wild/Urban Interface
Animals in the WUI*:
The power of preparedness
*Wild/Urban Interface
Julie Atwood, founder of the HALTER Project, trains first responders in equine rescue technique.
In the aftermath of every natural disaster, there’s an immediate and pervasive surge of media attention. on the tragedies, as well as the miracle stories, finger-pointing and blame.
Media Loves Drama
Photos of horses and pets being rescued from flames and flood make the evening news. Nobody reports on those that are safe, secure and calm because they evacuated early, and had a plan. Preparedness isn’t flashy. But it saves lives.
Back in 2013, Glen Ellen resident Julie Atwood was feeling anxious about the next earthquake. She searched for helpful tips on prepping for disasters—especially, how to plan for her cats, mule and horses. Info was almost nonexistent. She set out to learn how to be a “prepper for animals”. And the HALTER Project was born.
Today, 13 years later, HALTER Project is a global resource for animal owners, emergency managers, and community groups and leaders. Its primary goal? To help keep pets, equines and livestock—and their people—safe and together during and after natural disasters.
Along the way, HALTER Project gained for its unique approach to animal emergency and disaster readiness, by providing detailed, free tools and resources that address the needs of a wide range of animal owners and caregivers.
Julie with her cherished equine pals
Focusing at first on rural areas and senior communities, she was inundated with requests to speak, create workbooks, and specialized checklists, and answer questions.
She also began a program to support training for firefighters and other responders in Animal Technical Rescue. This specialty skill combines rope and heavy rescue techniques adapted to humanely and safely extricate big critters who are trapped in an overturned trailer, stuck in mud, fallen down a hillside, or are just elderly and creaky and can’t get up. In the process, she added a toolkit filled with resources to teach responders how to “Be proactive, not reactive”
“For every animal rescued, hundreds, often thousands, will be saved by education.” That belief is what fuels the HALTER Project—the knowledge that helping animal owners improve the odds to keep pets, equines and backyard livestock safer and together during and after a disaster or emergency.
Atwood became immersed in growing nationwide movement to develop emergency preparedness guidelines for companion animal s, equines and commercial livestock.
While Hurricane Katrina’s terrible toll on human and animal lives spurred Federal legislation restoring states to plan for animals in disasters, the mandate was not funded. Most states placed the burden (similarly, unfunded) on counties and municipalities. Beyond adding language to county disaster plans attendances animals and possible heeds, very little was done.
The HALTER Project was created to fill the gaps, in agency outreach and planning, particularly in rural areas and senior communities where resources and services are thin.
Julie envisioned a grassroots, locally relevant, and free resource that would be easily accessed and used by any individual, organization, or agency, anywhere, to help themselves and their community.
HALTER Project is a privately funded, unaffiliated program rather than a non-profit organization. Says Atwood: “this structure allows us to be nimble, flexible, act quickly, and not compete with non-profit charities”.
National recognition
Although Atwood encountered challenges gaining local acceptance of the program and access to local emergency planning information, HALTER Project rapidly spread across the country and around the world.
In September of 2016, Julie and her staff of one traveled to the White House, where HALTER Project was honored with two FEMA awards: One, for Individual and Community Preparedness, the second, for Community Call to Action. It was the first time a program focused on emergency preparedness for animals was recognized for its efforts. The program has been honored by the UC Davis Veterinary Emergency Response’s Team (VERT), California EMS, multiple FireSafe Councils, and Congressman Mike Thompson, among others.
Bringing it home
Julie retired from the hospitality business in 2016 to focus full-time on expanding the HALTER Project. She became a sought-after speaker, and the colorful HALTER Project booth has been a frequent fixture at community events.
Using her experiences as a credentialed volunteer with 7 animal response teams, CERT, and Red Cross, she shares intimate “first person” stories and lessons learned from major fires and floods over the past decade.
From the outset, HALTER Project goals focused on providing information that is specific to local animal owners. City apartment dwellers, suburban mobile home communities, rural families with a few acres or small farm, residents of senior communities, visitors to river, forest and coastal areas. All, living with pets, horses, Donkeys, chickens. Goats and other critters in what we now call the Wildland-Urban Interface”, or WUI.
As we now understand all too clearly, living with nature means adapting to other aspects of the natural world, including severe weather and dangerous conditions. We’re learning to adapt more holistically with the environment we—and our animals—live in. Preparing to roll with the punches and rebound successfully is a big part of life in the WUI.
The Halter Project was one of the many exhibits at the Emergency Preparedness Open House in May
Get Ready Now
HALTER Project works hard to make “need to know” info easy to find and use. On the website, you can find resources by category, geographic relevance, and features materials that are not specific to a particular region, as well. All are free and can be edited to fit the needs of an organization, business or agency.
The powerful HALTERproject.org website offers Animal Emergency Plan workbooks that include ready-to-use forms for planning and animal care instructions for caregivers, emergency animal responders and veterinarians, detailed supply Checklists, and guidelines for evacuation and shelter- in-place planning.
The website includes sections for first responders to help evaluate their safety during incidents involving large animals, and tools they can use with community engagement, and information about the types of animal disaster response resources they might have in their jurisdiction.
FireSAFE Animals at HALTERproject.org was created at the request of regional FireSafe Councils and FireWise Communities., providing a “one-stop” place for community leaders and safety educators to find tools to improve safety in and around their barn hardening, and resources to help them improve their home’s resiliency.
Why is this important for animal owners? Because, just like personal preparedness: If your home is safer and defensible, Animals at home are safer, too.
There’s also a lively HALTER Project YouTube channel, where viewers can watch and listen to webinars and videos on a wide range of topics
During and after the fires, floods, extended power outages, and pandemic, the value of being prepared to care for our animals has been proven emphatically.
Upcoming workshop
Residents of Bennett Valley and surrounding neighborhoods can take advantage of an upcoming workshop, Saturday, August 9.
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Stay safe!