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OCTOBER 2005

EDITORIALS—

Running down the Latrina/Rita storm rumors

Rescued horse, Lamar-Dixon (D. Forbes)

ANIMAL PEOPLE drove more than a thousand miles in three days during mid-September, visiting animal rescue centers in Louisiana, Mississippi, and Texas to investigate some of the frantic rumors about animals in distress and allegedly botched procedures that flew about the Internet after Hurricane Katrina.

Much of the worst that people heard, read, and sometimes thought they saw on TV was unequivocally false.

There was never any plan, for example, by any government agency, to exterminate lost or abandoned animals before making every effort to reunite them with their people.

Virginia Lee and staff at the Roicy Duhon Animal Control Center in Lafayette were “deluged” in protest calls responding to that rumor, Lee told Patrick Courreges of the Baton Rouge Advocate. Yet the only Roicy Duhon role in it was having a working telephone when irate people looked for someone to complain to.

Some field euthanasias became necessary as animal rescue missions into New Orleans were repeatedly delayed by the priorities of human service agencies and the obsession of law enforcement with combating looting, though little that was left in much of the city would ever again be of use to anyone.

However, Louisiana Department of Agriculture and Forestry veterinary relief operations director Tracey Bourke, DVM, ordered that “Professional judgement should be used for determining if an animal should be euthanized. The overarching question,” she stipuated, “is whether there is any chance that the animal could survive if available veterinary intervention is provided. Normally a moribund (near death) condition would be the general criteria used for this determination.”

Humane Society of the U.S. consultant Rebecca Rhoades, DVM, executive director of the Kauai Humane Society in Hawaii, directed euthanasia procedures and protocol.

“There have been significant problems with aggressive animals, most of them fighting dogs,” the American SPCA acknowledged on September 18, but added, “To date, less than 150 animals have been euthanized [at all rescue centers combined] for extreme aggression or serious health issues.”

Shooting dogs

Pasado’s Safe Haven posted rumors that law enforcement personnel would soon start shooting dogs on September 8. “Our team is heading into the hot zone with a team from Arizona,” the Pasado’s web log for the day began. They must wear dry suits to be allowed into the toxic waters. They are using a list of abandoned pets that pet owners have supplied to a national data base. They are breaking and entering to get the animals out. Many are too weak to bark or come to a window or door…Authorities have informed our team that they have three days to rescue all dogs before they start shooting them. They believe that dogs are eating dead bodies to stay alive.”

Added the Best Friends web site on September 9: “This morning we heard from one of our team members in New Orleans that the Louisiana Wildlife and Fisheries department was going to begin shooting and killing animals in Orleans Parish and not allowing animal rescue groups to enter the area.”

However, Best Friends added, “Colonel Wenton Vidrine, chief of law enforcement at Louisiana Wildlife & Fisheries, said that his people are involved with search and rescue. He said they are not and will not be killing peoples’ pets.”

Said Vidrine, “I’d better not catch any of my people shooting animals. If they did, they wouldn’t have our blessing, and would have to face me for it.”

The Dallas Morning News on September 10 published the first authenticated report of dog shootings, illustrated by a brief video clip on the newspaper web site.

“The ASPCA has confirmed reports of dog shootings in some local parishes,” the ASPCA web site later reported. “From what we have been able to determine, in some instances there were genuine issues of public safety, as well as concerns about protecting the integrity of human remains. In some areas, there is a lack of command and control because local officials don’t have experience handling free-roaming dogs and cats.

“On behalf of concerned citizens, ASPCA information coordinator Luiza Grune-baum contacted the office of Louisiana Governor Kathleen Blanco to inquire about the dog shootings that took place in St. Bernard’s Parish,” shown in the Dallas Morning News video. “According to a governor’s aide,” the ASPCA continued, “the shootings occurred under the orders of Sergeant Mike Minton, the sheriff, who “took this upon himself.” Grunebaum was told the shootings have ceased, and Sergeant Minton faces disciplinary charges.”

On September 29, however, New Orleans evacuees who had just returned to their homes took freelance travel writer/photographer Lorraine Chittock, a Danish journalist, and a CNN news crew to visit the P.G.T. Beauregard Middle School and the Sebastien Roy School in St. Bernard Parish. Both schools had been used as holding centers for evacuees, before they were bussed out of New Orleans.

At the Beauregard Middle School, “Some [dogs’ remains] were tied to walls, presumably by their people during evacuation, who had also written notes on the walls such as, ‘This is Angel, my little dog. Please don’t shoot her,’” Chittock told ANIMAL PEOPLE that evening. “Another note is from the National Guard that states having rescued three dogs. Another dog was presumably thrown out a second floor window. I think there are 15 total,” Chittock said. “There are 9-millimeter bullets and shotgun shells presumably used by cops. Some of the bodies are fairly decomposed, others not so.”

At the Sebastien Roy School, Chittock saw, “More dead animals. Cause of death uncertain. But definitely very much loved animals who were left by people who clearly thought someone would be picking them up shortly. Two cats in kennels. Long dead. Dogs on leads. One probably shot in the mouth.”

Chittock and other investigators later noted evidence that some of the animals were tortured before they were killed, including allegedly with a rubber phallus.

ANIMAL PEOPLE helped Chittock to contact the Louisiana SPCA, HSUS, and both national and local news media. Anderson Cooper of CNN meanwhile aired the CNN video on the morning of September 30.

St. Bernard Parish spokesperson Steve Cannizaro confirmed to Amy Forliti of Associated Press that the remains of at least 14 dogs were recovered.

Volunteer Marilyn McGee told Forliti that a pregnant female dog survived in a stairwell, where she birthed three puppies before being rescued.

Pasado’s Safe Haven posted a $10,000 reward for information leading to the conviction of the perpetrator(s). “The dogs who were shot in St. Bernard Parish did not die immediately,” Pasado’s cofounder and cruelty investigator Mark Steinway said. “They were not shot in the head to quickly bring about death. Shooting an animal in the body cavity,” as was apparently done to some of the dogs, “is among the most cruel ways to kill an animal.”

Pasado’s said that St. Bernard Parish Sheriff Jack Stephens confirmed that “the shell-casings are consistent with those used by law enforcement,” and promised to “get to the bottom of this. If it’s one of our officers,” Stephens told Pasado’s, “we’ll let the cards fall where they may.”

“To assure that a conviction can happen, Pasado’s rescuers will take the dogs to a veterinarian, licensed in the State of Louisiana, for necropsies,” Pasado’s pledged.

Other dog-shooting incidents were reported.

“A good friend spent a lot of time on the boats with the Winn Dixie animal rescue unit,” wrote Brenda Shoss of Kinship Circle. “He told me that one night, as they attempted to rescue a dog from beneath a bridge, they were fired at. They had to flee. The shots were aimed at the dog. He didn’t know if the shooters were returning citizens or law enforcement, because it was too dark.”

Turning away cats

Among the most flamboyant post-Katrina rumors, amplified by Los Angeles activist Michael Bell, was that Sheryl Green, a board member of the Southern California rescue group Cats Crossing, “received a call from an HSUS dispatcher in New Orleans to rescue some cats. She went into the flood zone and picked up 13 cats and put them in carriers,” Bell said. “She drove back to [the Lamar-Dixon Exhibition Center temporary shelter at] Gonzales, and there, [HSUS president] Wayne Pacelle himself told her they were not taking any cats who were not attached to a specific address. She asked him what he wanted her to do with the 13 cats in the carriers, and Pacelle told her to ‘Release those cats where they came from,’ in that flooded, toxic area to fend for themselves.”

“I was down there for two weeks, but did not get within 2000 feet of any such person,” Pacelle responded. “[HSUS volunteer] Jane Garrison did speak to her. All of the animals who come need to be cleared by veterinarians from the Public Health Service, and they were long gone by the time this woman came in, well after midnight.

“We have a morning briefing with our rescuers [each day] and demand that they come in by 8 p.m., so that the animals can be triaged and checked in.” Pacelle continued. “There was a 6 p.m. curfew in New Orleans and people should have no trouble getting back within two hours, after having 12 hours to do rescue.

“These cats were ferals,” Pacelle added, “and the American Veterinary Medical Association Veterinary Medical Assistance Team vets generally have a policy of euthanizing the extremely aggressive animals, including many of the feral cats. There is no good to come of bringing these animals into the facility, even if she had played by the rules. Jane tried to communicate this, but to no avail. Then Bell started to holler about it.”

Arguing that the cats were not feral, Green worked thereafter with representatives of another southern California group called Muttshack at the Winn Dixie rescue center.

“I made arrangements for Carol Asvestas [of Wild Animal Orphanage] to transport the cats to an American Sanctuary Association-accredited cat sanctuary in Mississippi,” which built a cattery in preparation for situations like this,” Aesop Project founder Linda Howard told ANIMAL PEOPLE.

The Lamar-Dixon Exhibition Center was repeatedly closed for several hours at a stretch in the early days of the water rescue operation when the number of animals on the premises exceeded the rated capacity of 1,300. At those times, rescuers bringing animals from New Orleans and other flooded areas were obliged to camp nearby until the gates reopened, or had to haul the animals to a second rescue center operated at Baton Rouge by the Louisiana State University School of Veterinary Medicine.

Once the LSU temporary shelter was closed at the same time as Lamar-Dixon, causing unholy confusion and rescuer outrage. A rescue center at Hattiesburg, Mississippi was also briefly closed at one point, again for exceeding the rated site capacity for animals.

But those closures were not by order of any humane organizations or veterinary authority. The orders came from the management of the respective fairgrounds, Lamar-Dixon rescue coordinator Dave Pauli of HSUS told ANIMAL PEOPLE, and appear to have been based exclusively on what the facilities were licensed to hold––albeit based on the supposition that the facilities would be holding horses and livestock during county fairs, not smaller animals during disasters.

Rescuers wishing to transport dogs and cats out of Louisiana or to foster dogs and cats were frequently turned away––but not because other rescuers or national humane organizations were trying to keep all of the adoptable animals and the media spotlight to themselves. Instead, the people at Lamar-Dixon and the other rescue centers tried desperately to reunite as many animals as possible with their humans, aware that the farther the animals were removed from New Orleans, the more difficult facilitating reunions would become.

When animals were finally sent in lots of 200 or more to shelters as far away as New England and the Pacific Northwest, the reason was that they had no identification, had been voluntarily surrendered by their people, or had been held for more than a month after their photographs were posted at <www.Petfinder.com>

Even then, the recommended protocol was that the shelters receiving the animals should keep them in fostering or other holding arrangements for two weeks to another month, in hopes that reunions might yet occur.

Lamar-Dixon and the other major rescue centers did not place animals with small organizations and individual volunteers because organizations farther from the scene were better able to track fostering arrangements. Those closest to the disaster had too many other things to monitor.

Dogfighters, scam artists, and various other unsavory types did indeed try to use the animal rescue operations as cover for their crimes, as was widely reported. No doubt some succeeded, but one of the most sensational allegations, about dogfighters allegedly absconding with a truckload of rescued pit bull terriers, appeared to trace back to a legitimate Rottweiler rescue group taking out an air-conditioned van carrying 16 Rotties, who appeared to be registered with various kennel clubs and therefore appeared to be easily returned to their people, when the people were traced.

Animal care issues

Some dogs at each rescue facility became overheated, or arrived already overheating, after long hauls from New Orleans, following days on exposed rooftops and porches, but––again contrary to rumor––very few died after reaching the rescue centers. Prompt administration of fluids, cooling baths, and much loving care saved all except the hardest of hard cases.

Kibble was often in oversupply at rescue centers, through the generosity of pet food companies and individual donors. One morning the Humane Society of Louisiana lacked enough live bodies to unload and stack all the truckloads of kibble coming in, so ANIMAL PEOPLE pitched in. But there was a shortage of canned special diet food from time to time at the HSUS rescue center in Hattiesburg, Mississippi, and perhaps at some other rescue centers, leading to Internet-amplified claims that the big groups were hoarding supplies.

Many of the more experienced disaster relief organizations, including HSUS, feed newly rescued animals a mix of 50% special diet and 50% whatever kind of kibble they will eat. This, explained Dave Pauli, largely clears up diarrhea and vomiting within 24 hours or less. However, it also requires reserving the supplies of canned special diet food for the new arrivals, when there is not enough to go around, and observing the 50% rule to stretch it.

Not every complaint that ANIMAL PEOPLE heard was ill-founded, but most that appeared to have substance involved unique incidents among stressed people and animals.

Florida cat rescuer Bonnie Carolin, for example, told ANIMAL PEOPLE that during her week as a volunteer at the rescue center in Waveland, Mississippi, “I personally witnessed a traumatized dog being killed because an inexperienced animal control officer––three months on the job––snared the dog with a catch pole, picked him up off the ground and slammed him down on his back. The dog came up fighting.

“The paid staff at the facility did not step in,” Carolin continued. “Those of us who had attended the dog throughout the night were not consulted about his disposition. The animal control officers from St. Lucie County who brought the dog in verified that he was not dangerous, but did not come in time.

“I had been in the dog’s kennel and had gotten doggie kisses,” Carolin said. “I immediately raised a protest. Others squirreled the dog’s brother out of the facility.”

Commented HSUS director of animal sheltering Kate Pullen, “I think we can all say that aspects of the response did not happen the right way––but not because people were lax or not working hard.”

Rumors follow disaster like thunder after lightning. The sky flashed for a moment, seeming to transform the world, yet thunder grumbles on, as the life-saving adrenalin surge that comes from confronting a challenge fades into exhaustion, perhaps even despair. The joy of bringing an animal out of hell gives way to the tedium of clean-up, repair, and recovery of remains, while the tide of donations that sustained the early efforts recedes and disappears.

The gratitude of the just rescued becomes the frustration of displaced people and animals who have been caged too long, and the explosions of would-be helpers who drive all day and night to reach the scene, arrive exhausted, then find themselves ill-prepared to do whatever needs to done––often not what they expected to be doing. Tired people burst into tears or swearing more easily, and give more credence to garbled “war stories” than they otherwise would.

At this stage, as ANIMAL PEOPLE saw at every rescue center we visited, stressed but appreciative animals actually give back comfort and a sense of proportion to the depleted people attending them.

Dogs tell the humans with wild tail-wags that everything will be all right. Cats remind the humans of the importance of rest and play.

Yelling

“I would be surprised if there was a single person there who did not get yelled at, or did not yell at someone else,” e-mailed Beckey Reiter of Burlington, Kentucky. “It was hot, dirty, sad, and depressing. We all worked long hours, and were tired and cranky. I couldn’t sleep at night from worrying about the animals and what needed to be done.

“Yes, HSUS insisted that animals be reunited with their people, instead of releasing them to rescuers who wanted to haul them in horse trailers in 100-degree weather,” Reiter continued, responding to the frequent complaint that the big groups would not cooperate with the little groups.

“I would hope that they would do everything in their power to get my dogs back to me, if I was faced with what these people went through. I will forever remember the little boy, about the same age as my youngest daughter, who told me how his beloved dog drowned in the storm surge. This child will never be reunited with his pet. That little boy’s tearful eyes crushed what little I had left in me that day.

“There were a lot of changes while I was there,” Reiter added. “Security increased, tarps were hung, fans were mounted, buildings were hosed down in the mid-day heat, dogs’ walking schedules expanded from twice a day to three times a day, people came and went, and rules changed. I watched dogs leaving with fosters, helped prepare animals for transport, and saw horses go home or be moved to foster farms. I’m sure things were better than the week before I came and better the next week than the way we left them.”
Among all the critical reports reaching ANIMAL PEOPLE, probably the most frequent theme was of institutional rivalry.

Pet ambulance company owner David Watts, for example, told Contra Costa Times columnist Gary Bogue about a jurisdictional dispute among HSUS, the ASPCA, local organizations, and the Federal Emergency Management Task Force over who could authorize moving a dog from Lamar-Dixon to Louisiana State University. The actual issue was apparently maintaining the paper trail on where the dog was, in case his family came looking for him.

Within the same time frame as that incident, however, ANIMAL PEOPLE spent six hours at the Lamar-Dixon command center, on the day that the center received a peak load of 775 animals, and never saw the big groups working together more effectively or amicably.

There was no problem whatever in delineating who was in charge of what. HSUS, the ASPCA, and Best Friends each coordinated all other groups working in particular sectors of New Orleans and immediate suburbs.

The only evident communications problems had to do with cell telephones not working. To minimize that, HSUS, the ASPCA, International Fund for Animal Welfare, Doris Day Animal League, Code 3, United Animal Nations, Orphans of the Storm, the Animal Rescue League of Boston, and many others parked their command trailers so as to form an improvised main street and town square, facilitating easy (and constant) running back and forth with hand-delivered messages.

Some newly arrived small organizations did not want to follow the protocol established by the leading agencies, which called for all volunteers to spend their first day at Lamar-Dixon or one of the other major rescue centers to learn the procedures, before obtaining the credentials required by FEMA and the state of Louisiana to enter New Orleans.

Some breed rescue groups just wanted to pack up all the examples of their breed on the premises and go, without regard to the holding time required to enable people to reunite with their animals.

Some rescuers vocally expressed the view that cleaning cages, moving supplies, walking dogs, scooping poop, and data processing were beneath them, when they had come to do the more adventurous work of water rescue––though mounting any such operation typically requires 4-5 support personnel for every person in the field.

Yet even a quick walk through both human and animal disaster relief encampments showed that the friction among the animal rescuers was relatively slight.

“Unlike the human-rescue effort, which has been dogged by finger-pointing and disorganization, the animal groups––though notorious for their rivalries––are working in harmony,” agreed Deborah Wood of the Portland Oregonian.

Fighting sinking feelings of failure in an inundated city

Of the many stresses that Hurricane Katrina and Rita rescuers had to deal with, perhaps the most ubiquitous was the feeling among exhausted volunteers that no matter what they did, they had not done enough.

“I have personally pulled hundreds of animals from roof tops, attics, and houses,” HSUS food and water team leader Jane Garrison e-mailed to Karen Dawn of DawnWatch on September 19. “It is amazing to me that these animals are still alive. I got a dog off a roof who should have weighed 90 pounds, but was down to 40 pounds from being stuck with no food and water. These animals want to live and are showing us this every day.”

But Garrison hardly felt uplifted.

“By the time we get to the first address,” Alvarez wrote, “we have stopped to care for many animals on the streets along the way. By the end of the day, we have only covered two or three of the eight to ten addresses on our list.

“A friend and I drove today for six hours, but only a very small number enjoyed our efforts,” Alvarez continued. “Everywhere we looked there was at least one cat or dog looking for food. We ran out of food and water (and some air in one tire) and headed home devastated knowing that many had not eaten for days.”

“There are tens of thousands of animals still alive and left with no food and water in the most unbearable heat,” Companion Animal Network founder Garo Alexanian affirmed on September 27, returning to his home in New York City after a week in New Orleans. “The city has been divided into 31 sectors,” Alexanian continued. “Teams have been dropping food and water for the past three weeks. I eventually became one of the HSUS food and water coordinators. Thousands of animals were temporarily kept alive. But the food and water must be replenished.

“The next phase is to go door to door of the list of pet guardians who called from all around the country, notifying us of their address and how many animals they left locked in their homes. This master list just became available three days ago. Thousands of addresses must be visited,” Alexanian said.

Underestimating achievement

Feelings of frustrated inadequacy seemed to go right to the top. “There are many more failures than successes,” Humane Society of the U.S. president Wayne Pacelle told reporters during a September 16 briefing at the Louisiana Office of Emergency Preparedness.

Pacelle shared an abstract of estimates produced by ANIMAL PEOPLE two weeks earlier that the 500,000 people who were evacuated from New Orleans had about 250,000 pets, of whom about 200,000 left with their families.

That left 50,000 animals behind. If 25,000 of them survived the first few hours of flooding, then 25,000 potentially could have been rescued. About 8,000 were rescued by the official disaster relief teams, another 4,000 might have been taken out by unaffiliated rescuers, and several thousand were found alive by returning New Orleans residents.

Additional thousands could have been saved, if the Louisiana authorities had allowed rescuers to enter the city several days sooner––and if Hurricane Rita had not reflooded the city three weeks into the rescue, interrupting the work and probably drowning some animals who survived the first flood.

“Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath created a catastrophe that no relief organization was fully prepared to handle,” ASPCA president Ed Sayres summarized. “While thousands of animals were rescued, thousands more remained in desperate need while the ASPCA and hundreds of large and small animal organizations raced against time.

“Our rescue teams were at times waylaid by law enforcement and a bureaucratic, time-consuming credentialing system,” Sayres said. “Hazardous conditions halted many operations and poor cell phone reception slowed response time. Rescue teams reached some sites to find many more animals than expected and at other sites to find Good Samaritans had already evacuated the animals.

“Hurricane Rita forced even more delay,” Sayres continued. “Our 60-plus-page list of animals in need of rescue was compiled from multiple sources and fraught with inaccuracy. Curfews limited the number of hours that teams could operate. Lack of camping space and services for staff and volunteers limited the number of responders.

“Still,” Sayres said, “more than 200 animal welfare organizations worked furiously to coordinate rescue and relief for as many animals as possible.

“No one knows how many animals were in New Orleans before the hurricane,” Sayres finished. “No one knows how many animals were evacuated. What we do know is that the numbers are staggering.”

Certainly the post-Katrina/Rita rescue effort did not manage to save all of the animals who might have been saved. Perhaps the rescuers saved 50%.

Yet historical perspective is in order.

Hitting the same region in 1957, Hurricane Audrey––like Katrina––nearly erased the coastal communities of Grand Chenier, Creole, and Cameron from the map.

Officially, 390 human bodies were found. The actual death toll easily exceeded 400, about 40% of the Katrina toll at a time when the region held far fewer than 40% as many people. Whole families were swept out to sea, with no one left to report the missing.

Among the never identified victims was a teenaged girl who drowned clutching a puppy she tried to rescue.

The American Humane Association and the Humane Society of Southwestern Louisiana in Lake Charles were able to rescue just 58 dogs and six cats from the disaster area.

Both human and animal victims were hastily buried in mass graves.

Compared to the Hurricane Audrey response, the humane response to Katrina and Rita was monumentally successful. The only post-disaster animal rescue operations to have saved more animals were those undertaken in India, Sri Lanka, Thailand, and Indonesia after the Indian Ocean tsunami of December 26, 2004––but that disaster affected thousands of miles of coastline in nine Asian and African nations, killing many times more animals than were rescued.

The Katrina/Rita response not only saved thousands of animals, but saved a relatively high percentage of all who might have been saved. Improvement was possible, yet a sense of accomplishment against great adversity is well deserved.

Donations & Disaster

Disasters requiring monumental animal relief efforts are likely to happen increasingly often in coming years, as climatic instability increases due to global warming. Thus the lessons learned from the response to the evacuation of New Orleans, many of them still just beginning to be absorbed, may appear to be as important 13 years from now as the lessons from Hurricane Andrew in 1992 were to enabling the humane community to respond to Katrina and Rita with markedly more efficacy than the governmental and nonprofit human services sectors.

The animals’ need has been great after the devastating storm, and there is rebuilding to follow in Louisiana and Mississippi. On the positive side, there is now the possibility of improving conditions for animals in the Deep South in many ways, through the infusion of new interest, new energy, and new capital. Many of the disaster relief workers who ventured south to help had never seen the “Third World of the U.S.” before. Many vowed to return, to help follow through with the rebuilding, and all who served or donated are likely to have an enduring intensified interest in animal welfare in parts of rural Louis-iana, Mississippi, and Alabama that only six weeks ago were seldom noticed. 

As much as $40 million has been donated to help animals in the Katrina/Rita hurricane zone. This is in itself an astonishing accomplishment, amounting to more than the annual revenues of all but a few of the biggest animal welfare organizations worldwide. ANIMAL PEOPLE is concerned, however, that organizations not raising funds for hurricane relief work may experience disaster in the form of reduced donations this winter, now that so many animal charity donors have poured their resources into Katrina/Rita relief.  

We are apprehensive about the possibility of a repetition of the post-9/11 phenomenon. After the lion’s share of 2001 charity donations––for people and animals alike––went to organizations in the New York City area, donations fell off so sharply elsewhere that many charities without endowments or investment portfolios went into debt, were forced to curtail key programs, or were forced to close. Nationally, the numbers of homeless animals killed in shelters soared by half a million, coinciding with reductions in funding for low-cost and free dog and cat sterilization. The shelter death toll is now falling again, but recovering lost progress toward becoming a no-kill nation took four years.

At ANIMAL PEOPLE post-9/11, we maxed out our personal credit to continue publishing, but for several years were reluctantly obliged to reduce the numbers of free subscriptions we sent to overseas animal charities, and reduce spending on other outreach programs such as our website.

We ask for the help of our loyal supporters now, so that we can sustain and expand our momentum.

If you can make a donation to ANIMAL PEOPLE at this time, we assure you it will be put to good use in changing things for animals in the future by changing the way people think about animals and animal welfare now.