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From this morning's Herald

SPCA waits for power

Sick animals shivering in cold, volunteers have no hot water to wash soiled cages, blankets

By PATRICIA BROOKS ARENBURG Staff Reporter Fri. Dec 26 - 5:12 AM

Some ailing puppies were shivering in the cold at the Metro SPCA on Christmas Day after spending about 30 hours without heat at the Dartmouth animal shelter.
The lights were on in a handful of rooms, but there wasn’t enough power getting into the Scarfe Court building in Burnside Park to generate heat for the more than 30 dogs and many cats and a handful of rabbits housed inside.
In an interview barely audible over the din of howling and barking dogs, Sean Kelly, the chairman of the shelter management team, said he had repeatedly called Nova Scotia Power to get someone to come out to restore power, but got nowhere.
"We had volunteers come in today expecting to clean a few kennels and help a few animals and instead they were hit with a huge amount of work and seeing the dogs like this . . . everyone’s just demoralized beyond belief," he said.
The high-pitched ring of the alarm, which activated when the power went off but couldn’t be shut off for security reasons, prompted more barking and meowing as it changed pitch. Volunteers had no hot water to sanitize the kennels and working areas, which stank of feces and urine.
About a dozen tall laundry baskets piled high with soiled blankets were lined up in front of two industrial laundry machine sets, while the blanket storage area was almost empty.
"If we don’t have power tomorrow, we’re done," Mr. Kelly said. "We’re out of stuff. We have to start bringing this to our homes."
Kat Horne, a member of the management team, said the shelter was using extra blankets to keep the dogs and cats warm during the lengthy outage, which began early Wednesday morning. Two thin-coated terriers were shivering in the observation room, which housed some sick dogs. They wear coats at night to keep warm, but would have to wear them during the day, she said.
The low, heart-wrenching moans of one particular dog — a large husky-German shepherd mix named Reegan — could be heard from the front entry, even though he was tucked away in the last cage of the dog isolation room at the opposite end of the building.
"When they can’t see, it freaks them out," making a stressful situation even worse for the animals, Ms. Horne said.
"What we really need is Nova Scotia Power to come and do something like they were supposed to yesterday."
There were no metro-area outages listed on the company’s online outage page when The Chronicle Herald contacted NSP. Company spokeswoman Glennie Langille confirmed the shelter’s strange power situation, saying the shelter’s outage was a "one-off" in the area and that the crews focused on larger outages and institutions on the restoration priorities list.
At 2:30 p.m., after The Chronicle Herald contacted NSP, Ms. Langille said a crew was on its way to fix the problem.
The power was still not on at the shelter shortly before 3 p.m., but Mr. Kelly was glad to hear help was on its way.
And, he said, the shelter is "going to try and get ourselves put on their list of priorities, so that’s just something that the Nova Scotia SPCA and Nova Scotia Power have to work out."
( pbrooks@herald.ca)

But I'm getting off topic. We've been having a chilly December all around the province. I don't even want to think about how very much worse this story would have been if the mercury hadn't risen dramatically during that time.

This wouldn't even have been mentioned in the news if Metro had a generator. If Metro is the sheltering partner for HRM, then as an essential service involving living breathing sentient beings, HRM has a moral ( and legal ?) obligation to protect the helpless creatures in its care. Ergo, HRM Emergency services has a obligation to provide Metro with emergency backup in case of disaster.

My brother, who is an engineer, tells me that propane generators are the way to go. The initial outlay might be a bit more, but they are cheaper to run and involve less maintenance. And then of course there is the purely practical aspect that when there is an extended loss of power, most gas stations cannot pump gas, while purchases of tanks of propane and propane deliveries are still possible.

I expect that assistance for Metro from HRM will be more readily forthcoming on the heels of strong voter feedback. THe EMO may be contacted by emailing HRM_EMO@halifax.ca. You find contact information for your Councillor at http://www.halifax.ca/districts/index.html.

The world is a dangerous place, not because of those who do evil, but because of those who look on and do nothing. Albert Einstein