Forces Of Nature: The incredible and courageous story of two pet rescuers after the devastation of Hurricane Katrina

By Graham Spence

Forces of Nature is the remarkable story of the courage and commitment of two ordinary women who put their lives, jobs and families on hold to rescue hundreds of thousands of pets fighting for their lives when Hurricane Katrina destroyed New Orleans.Joanne Greene, a former Playboy Bunny, and Penny Koncz, an award winning Michigan body builder, watched with horror as almost the entire pet population of one of American's most iconic cities was abandoned and some even shot in the aftermath of the third most powerful Atlantic storm in history.While humans were ordered to evacuate New Orleans in 2005, no provision was made for the estimated 300,000 pets. Many were left in homes with a bowl of food and water, as their owners expected to return soon. No one was prepared for the apocalypse looming on the horizon.As the levees broke, thousands of animals had no choice but to sink or swim. Even more, locked in homes, drowned as the raging waters burst through buildings, flooding rooms up to the ceiling. Tragically, even more who survived marathon swims to dry land, or who could flee to roofs and attics, later perished drinking toxic water from the city's ruptured sewers and petrochemical industries.Unable to stomach what was happening, Joanne and Penny dropped everything and reported to the Lamar Dixon Animal Rescue Center at Gonzales, Louisiana. Every day they travelled into the wreckage of New Orleans to rescue terrified animals, many now semi-feral after the horrors they had been through. They waded through foaming polluted waters, crawled under homes knowing there were venomous snakes slithering nearby, stepped on bodies and bones, gagged on the stench of corpses rotting in sub-tropical heat, saw horror and honor in equal measures ... and witnessed firsthand an unconquerable will to survive by even the humblest of creatures.It was not just the field rescues they were involved in. After bringing animals to safety, they worked tirelessly to reunite them with their owners.What these gallant people did is now a blueprint for domestic animal rescue in disaster zones. Hurricanes will come and go, but it is unlikely that defenseless creatures will ever again be so callously abandoned by bureaucratic collapse as they were during Katrina.This book is a tribute to all animal rescuers, the unsung heroes of America's most famous natural disaster is only now being fully told.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1535578173
• ISBN13: 9781535578172
• Release Date: July 2016
• Publisher: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform
• Length: 244 Pages
• Weight: 0.95 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.0" x 0.6" x 6.0"