Alaqua Animal Refuge is Sheltering Animals from Central Florida Through Hurricane Milton

PANAMA CITY, Fla. (WJHG/WECP) – As hurricane Milton approaches, it’s not only people who are in danger—animals are at risk too. Without the help of Alaqua Animal Refuge several animals in shelters across Central Florida would have had nowhere to go.

But Alaqua worked with the state to evacuate about 80 cats and dogs from 5 different Central Florida shelters to Walton county.

Transporting these animals was not an easy task; most airports in Central Florida are closed, roads are full, and there were no state dog kennels available. But Tuesday afternoon, Alaqua finally received an airplane full of animals that will be taken care of through the storm, and after.

Alaqua’s founder Laurie Hood says it is a dream come true to be helping these animals through a tough time. “It’s such an amazing feeling… I mean my heart is definitely full, and that’s why we built Alaqua… I had a dream of building this place to not only help the animals that are here but to have a facility that we could house animals in emergency situations… and I’m just almost teary eyed knowing that we get to utilize the facility for that today,” said Hood.

Volunteers also stepped up to help. “I can’t drive down to Tampa to help, but I can drive 35 minutes to Alaqua to help… the animals need the help, you know a lot of times we don’t think about the animals when we evacuate,” said John W. Riddle, an Alaqua Volunteer.

Wings of Rescue and The Humane Society of the United States also helped making this transport of animals be a reality.

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