In the past two weeks, Animal Place has suffered a historic winter storm.
More than 70 miles of our local 80th Interstate closed due to hazardous conditions. Shelter-in-place warnings have been issued for many Nevada and Placer County local residents. We held our breath as the snow began to fall continuously for several days.
Thousands of people do not have electricity in their homes. This includes some of the Animal Place employees! Loss of space makes driving extremely dangerous.
To put things in perspective, California’s Sierra Mountains broke its all-time December snowfall record. Almost 200 inches fell!
Despite the harsh conditions, The animals still need to be taken care of.
Animal caretakers have defied long-term changes in conditions of limited daylight, ice, snow, rain and freezing temperatures. They worked during the holidays and weathered the storm. Electricity at the reserve was lost for several days.
Our selfless staff showed up because the animals needed them. The snow-covered reserve can look like a winter wonderland. But behind the scenes are chapped lips, parched hands, frozen feet and exhausted people.
This is one of the less interesting facts about sanctuary work. Animals have no holidays or snow days.
Even in the worst conditions, bed sheets need to be changed, life-saving medication is needed, food needs to be delivered, and water needs to be cleaned. Hundreds of animals in our care depend on us and It is our responsibility to keep them safe.
We are eternally grateful to our animal care staff for being there when they needed it most.
Without warm-up work, we cannot continue to rescue animals. Because of the forgiveness and compassion of these incredible humans, our rescued animals will always know warmth, safety, security, and love. And that’s all this work is about!
