COLLEGE STATION, Texas — The Texas A&M VET team deployed to East Texas where flooding has displaced countless people and pets from their homes.
- The Veterinary Emergency Team, or VET, deploys across the state of Texas in emergency response situations — their last deployment was to the Panhandle Wildfires in March.
- The team examined more than 50 pets and their owners after they were forced to leave their homes.
- As people are starting to leave the shelter, the VET team is preparing to head back home by the end of this week.
Broadcast Script:
Weeks of heavy rains in East Texas have left countless people with nowhere to turn.
“When the flooding all started and they set this shelter up, it was a co-located shelter, which is really really good," said Director of the Texas A&M Veterinary Emergency Team (VET), Dr. Debra Zoran.
"That means the people are staying inside at the community center, and they set their animals up in overhangs around the building next to them.”
Dr. Zoran and her team deployed to flooded Coldspring last Wednesday — since then, they’ve been helping Texans and their pets who were caught in the floodwaters.
"A really, really, really important thing to do in floodwaters is, we call it decontamination," Dr. Zoran said.
"But it's really just a bath because the floodwaters have horrible things in them — that is toxic chemicals and sewer and all kinds of horrible things in it."
Dr. Zoran says many of the people staying in the shelter are now faced with rebuilding their entire lives.
“A lot of these folks, when they got here, whatever they carried out with them when they left in the boat or driving out in a truck or however they drove out of the water," she said.
"That's literally all they had left.”
Once they got there, the team immediately began examining the 39 dogs and 13 cats in the shelter and their owners.
“Treating them and taking care of skin things and getting rid of fleas.”
As people are starting to leave the shelter, the VET team is preparing to head back home, hopefully by the end of this week.
The A&M VET team is one of its kind in the nation — earlier this month, Dr. Zoran visited with lawmakers in Washington D.C. to talk about expanding the program across the country.