Lamorinda Disaster Animal Response Team - DART

usDART

Five years after Katrina animals and their owners are still on their own when a disaster happens. The Red Cross will not shelter pets with their owners. Disaster responders are not trained to handle animals. Officials are not enforcing the PETS Act. It is time to do something about it: join DART!

Lamorinda DART (Disaster Animal Response Team)

Lamorinda DART is a group of experienced animal disaster responders. DART specializes in Animal Care and Sheltering during disasters. Our operational area includes the City of Lafayette, the Town of Moraga and the City of Orinda. Our emergency animal shelters are located near a shelter for people. Other partners are the Contra Costa County Animal Response Team (Contra Costa Animal Services), Noah's Wish, other DARTs in Contra Costa and the American Red Cross. Together, we rescue the whole family.

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If you are interested in receiving information about DART (training dates and locaations, deployments, new DARTs, etc.) you should sign up for our newsletter. It only takes two steps: 1. register on our main web site: http://usDART.org , and 2. select any of our mailing lists. It is that easy!

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DART News

Shasta DART Makes Headlines

Written by Frans Hoffman
Picture this: New Orleans post-Hurricane Katrina, five starving Rottweilers are stranded on a roof, and the only thing on hand to help them make the journey to safety is one long 2 x 4 board. What’s a determined animal rescuer to do?
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Disaster Summit: 4/17 at Animal Services

Written by Frans Hoffman
Contra Costa County Animal Services has invited all animal rescue groups in the County to a Disaster Animal Summit. The invitation (see below) says it all. This is an important event for animal rescues, a great opportunity to network, to find out what the County can do for them in a disaster and what they can do to help themselves and other rescues recover from a disaster. Let's get organized: attend this meeting!!!
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Disaster Animal Response Team training is coming to Walnut Creek for the first time!

Written by Frans Hoffman

Letter to CERT graduates, sent out by Walnut Creek CERT.

The fact that there is going to be a Walnut Creek DART is to a large degree thanks to the support and leadership provided by Gayle Vassar. The coalition to realize this event includes the City of Walnut Creek, Tony La Russa's Animal Rescue Foundation (which makes their building available for free!), Contra Costa County Animal Services (for the binders, for printing the participant handouts and for the backpacks, Noah's Wish and a group of individuals, some of whom are mentioned below. Others, like Sandy Stewart and Noell Cross are contributing an awful lot behind the scenes.)

We are privileged to have such a powerful group of organizations and indivudals dedicated to the well-being of animals in disasters help us realize a DART in Walnut Creek!

A Brief History of DART

Written by Frans Hoffman

When people hear about DART, many of them they say: "How could it be otherwise?" We understand. The decentralized, CERT-based approach that DART advocates makes sense to anyone who has been in a serious disaster. Unfortunately, there are still many people who think that all that is necessary is to build a "cavalry", a centralized state-wide, national or even international, response group that will ride to the rescue if a disaster happens. They miss the point that all disasters are local. Even though we will need outside help, building a local response team capable of immediate response is the best disaster preparedness action we can take. How did we get to this concept? Read about it in A Short History of DART...

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DART Spreading Its Wings

Written by Frans Hoffman

DART Spreads Its Wings Close to 20 DART members from Lamorinda, Walnut Creek and Shasta County returned home last night after attending another fabulous Noah’s Wish Training.
Noah’s Wish keeps getting better and better. We are truly blessed to have this organization as our back up.

After the training there was a short meeting of all existing DART groups (“The First Pan-Galactic DART Convention”). We worked on common issues, policies etc. We have now all returned safely home with more knowledge and closer friendships.
The only sad thing was that Auburn, California, was too far for DARTs from South Carolina and Virginia to attend.

Here is a link to a slideshow made by Lamorinda DART member Linda Swanson.

Noah's Wish In-Field Training 2010

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Start Your Own DART!

Interested in starting your own disaster animal response team? If you are representing a CERT group, watch this exciting slide show and learn how Lamorinda DART can help you deliver advanced CERT training to your graduates.

First, watch the online presentation! Then check our Frequently Asked Questions about Starting a DART. If you have any questions, please contact us at This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it

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