NathanThe Wake
As the storm left the area, the family hurried to get into their garage in the hopes of finding their dear dog, curled up in the corner somewhere inside. Since the family did not spot him anywhere inside the house, they were hoping to see him in the garage at least.
The lovely pup named Mason was nowhere inside and the poor family had to come to terms with this realization. The family was not okay with the fact that they would have to get out of the house minus the dog during the time their house would be under repair. So where could Mason be?
Leaving Behind
His owners were terrified that the worst might have happened to little Mason. They were hesitant to accept the fact that he had lost his life due to the storm. They had an inkling that Mason was still out there somewhere, that he survived the storm. The family scoured the whole entire neighborhood to hopefully find or get clues of Mason’s whereabouts.
They took several days to search for him but in the end, since there was not a single clue found, they had to accept that he was no longer there. The family spoke about their dog but did not want media attention or any kind of coverage.
Desperately Searching
As soon as the Tuscaloosa–Birmingham tornado had gone away, animal shelters and rescue groups worked together to hopefully bring about some positivity on the destruction that the storm had left. There were reportedly about 1,800 animals that had been displaced. They did their best to get the pets and families to reunite.
These organizations also help by keeping dogs that have lost their owners to the storm, up for adoption. They also had to deal with the dogs that have been abandoned by owners who lived through the storm, unable to take responsibility due to the overwhelming feeling of loss and trauma. So then, what ended up happening for Mason?
Reality Strikes
It was easy for owners to assume that their pets were gone after realizing that they were not there next to them when the storm passed on. Mason’s family tried very had to find him but since their luck ran out, they had to somehow find a way to accept that he was gone.
About one-third of the animals that had gone missing were successfully reunited with their families, due to the efforts of the animals’ shelter and organizations. The organizations had a 10-day policy where if none of the pet owners came to claim them, they would be put up for adoption or sent to another animal shelter. Could Mason have turned up in another family’s home by now?
The Effort
The animal shelters decided that they had to extend the dates as some animals had been injured by the storm, needing a lot of extra medical attention too. It must be a great feeling to have found something you thought had been lost forever, sort of like finding a lost earring, but ten times better.
The volunteer sometimes needed to come up with a difficult choice when dealing with the heavily injured pets. “We found a lot of animals with broken feet and broken tails and we lost a few due to internal injuries,” Jennifer Bidwell working in Walker County revealed. Many kittens and puppies were also injured and had to be manually fed by their mothers due to their conditions. Was Mason there too?
The Aftermath
The pets who had been kept in these temporary shelters along with the ones in Tuscaloosa ended up being placed in the Greater Birmingham Humane Society. Candie Horsley, who is the manager at Cullman City Animal Shelter in Alabama revealed that a whopping 400 animals came in.
“We have 24 usable kennels in our shelter and 20 foster homes for 107 animals,” Horsley explained, “We are packed.” Tuscaloosa’s Metro Animal Control ended up with about 770 animals during that time period too, but still, Mason was nowhere in sight.