OCTOBER 2005

WHO DID WHAT IN THE HURRICANE KATRINA—RITA CRISIS?
GONZALES, La.; TYLERTOWN, Miss.; HOUSTON––With Internet “bloggers” and mass media providing almost minute-to-minute updates on the Hurricane Katrina and Rita animal evacuations through the peak of the crisis, ANIMAL PEOPLE soon realized that our major roles would be rumor control (see page 3) and helping donors effectively direct their contributions.

From August 27, 2005 to our October 2005 edition press date, ANIMAL PEOPLE documented the helping efforts of more than 190 humane organizations involved in the Katrina/Rita rescues and evacuations, acknowledged in the following pages, beginning with brief profiles of some of those that were most prominent.

The first mention of each organization will be in boldface, to allow readers to quickly identify their roles. Many organizations did much more than page space and time available have allowed us to describe, and would be worthy of profiles, opportunity permitting. We hope to have hit the highlights, with apologies in advance to those who may feel overlooked or neglected.

ANIMAL PEOPLE received e-mails, calls, and news clippings mentioning the plans of hundreds of other organizations, whose accomplishments are not yet verified––partly because many became too busy, often in places without working telephones, to maintain contact.

Alvin Bean of Southeast Llama Rescue, in Marshall, North Carolina, was a case in point. Among the first rescuers to e-mail to ANIMAL PEOPLE asking how to volunteer, she was next heard from on October 8.

“I worked in the control center for the Humane Society of the U.S. search-and-rescue and food-and-water teams, doing data base management and dispatch. Then I went back into New Orleans,” Bean wrote. “We are still just getting to some homes where animals were left, and amazingly we are finding animals still alive. Lots of dead, too, but where folks left their pets with lots of food and water, we are finding about 10-20 survivors per day.

“We are now working outside of official HSUS auspices,” Bean added. “HSUS stopped officially sending out rescue teams about a week ago, but unofficially we are still in business. HSUS is allowing us cat and dog food, a few other supplies, and the use of computers and such in the command center, but this will all end on the 15th,” when the HSUS lease on the Lamar-Dixon Exhibition Center was to expire.

Winn-Dixie

Lamar-Dixon rescue worker (D. Forbes)
The Winn-Dixie Marketplace Temporary Staging Area at the edge of New Orleans became increasingly important during the late phases of the rescue operation.

In the early days post-Katrina, Winn-Dixie was an isolated forward outpost, set up in a parking lot by Mark and Shannon Martin of Disaster Response Animal Rescue, from Athens, Georgia. The Humane Society of Louisiana, itself stretched thin, sent volunteers and supplies from Tylertown.

As more rescuers entered the city, and residents began returning, Winn-Dixie became the busiest rescue center, closest to where surviving animals were still being found.

“Imagine a MASH unit on the front lines of a war zone. We triage, minor decontamination, stabilization, and transport,” Shannon Martin told ANIMAL PEOPLE. “My husband started this location out of sheer desperation. He had been rescuing and transporting into Jefferson Feed when they shut down due to disorganization and bad planning. Many animals died because of that screw up.

“We estimate that approximately 3,000-4,000 animals have come through Winn- Dixie,” Shannon Martin estimated on October 5. “Only two have been euthanized. One almost killed a volunteer and the other was so close to death that it was much more humane than prolonging his suffering. The rest were sent to Tylertown or other nonprofit no-kill facilities. We never held ourselves out as a temporary shelter,” Shannon Martin stipulated. “Our site was always and still is a temp holding facility in the disaster zone that stabilizes animals in preparation for transport to outlying shelters.”

“The local shelters only have space for criticals, so there are hundreds of abandoned animals on the streets,” Bean reported. “I hope that some of us will be able to set something up to continue to help these animals after the 15th. Most people plan to go home and the Louisiana SPCA can’t yet deal with all the street animals,” Bean opined. “I don’t know what will happen to them.

Louisiana & Houston SPCAs

Resuming responsibility for providing animal control service to New Orleans, the Louisiana SPCA expected to work from a converted warehouse in Algiers until it can build a new headquarters.

“We are beginning our transition back to New Orleans and expect to be up and running by October 7,” executive director Laura Maloney announced on September 30.

As Katrina approached, the Louisiana SPCA on August 27 vacated the shelter it had long occupied on Japonica Street in New Orleans, much as it often had ahead of other hurricanes, unaware that this would be the last time.

Twenty-five dogs held in pending court cases went to Baton Rouge Animal Control, while 263 other animals were trucked to the Houston SPCA, which had opened up space, according to plan, by doubling up occupancy of runs where practicable and transferring about 200 animals to the SPCA of Texas in Dallas.

The SPCA of Texas in turn opened cage space by putting approximately 75 animals into emergency fostering, cutting adoption fees by 50% to 75%, and escalating adoption promotion.

After the New Orleans levies broke, and the evacuation of the entire city became necessary, the Houston SPCA made still more space available by obtaining donated use of a nearby automobile showroom on an as-needed basis. The showroom served as a temporary shelter for several days at a stretch whenever new loads of animals arrived from New Orleans, and when large numbers of small dogs, cats, ferrets, birds, and even snakes were found among the human evacuees at the Astrodome and the George Browne Center.

The human evacuation centers in Houston sent the most animals to the Houston SPCA: 400 just on the peak day of the New Orleans Superdome evacuation.

More than two weeks after the New Orleans evacuation, about two-thirds of the animals at the Houston SPCA were still of New Orleans origin, and were on longterm hold, awaiting reclaim by their people. About 1,000 animal victims of Hurricane Katrina had passed through, of whom 200 were reunited with their people and about 200 more were identified.

Most of the rest were sent to animal shelters in San Diego and Cincinnati, for longterm fostering and eventual adoption if not identified and reclaimed.

There were no pit bull terriers or Rottweilers from New Orleans at the Houston SPCA when ANIMAL PEOPLE visited, in contrast to the predominance of pit bulls and Rottweilers at the rescue centers closer to the disaster area––but the Houston SPCA had received multitudes of Chihuahuas, other small dogs, cats, and other relatively easily smuggled animals such as birds, snakes, and ferrets, who had been sneaked aboard evacuation buses and helicopters.

David Dubuc, a Houston SPCA staff member since 1989, and public relations officer and humane educator Stacy Fox, a 20-year veteran of humane work with several different agencies, told ANIMAL PEOPLE that the Houston SPCA was most proud of having accommodated twice their usual workload on short notice, without having to kill any animals to make space for the newcomers.

Louisiana SPCA staff who returned to New Orleans began rescuing animals on September 2, the same day as Best Friends, “but had to stop evacuation as ordered by the state, due to violence,” Maloney posted. As the Japonica Street shelter was irreparably damaged, the Louisiana SPCA rescuers worked at first from rented rooms at the New Orleans Hyatt hotel.

A $200,000 grant from the ASPCA enabled Maloney to buy a fully furnished home near Gonzales that was occupied by at least 15 staff members during the recovery operations.

HSUS

The Humane Society of the U.S., designated the lead agency for animal rescue by the Federal Emergency Management Authority, began moving disaster relief personnel and equipment into the New Orleans area on August 30. About 80 experienced volunteers from other animal agencies joined HSUS staff at staging points in Florida and Texas, including Days End Farm Horse Rescue cofounder Allan Schwartz, of Lisbon, Maryland, who brought along a truckload of items needed for handling hooved stock.

They soon called for more help.

“We have 125 people and 39 support vehicles in Louisiana, and more than 100 emergency personnel and 17 support vehicles in Mississippi,” HSUS National Disaster Animal Response Team incident commander Laura Bevan posted from Jackson, Mississippi on September 8, while “Calling on all federal, state, and local responding agencies to help provide animal rescue assistance immediately. Even though we’ve been able to put hundreds of people in the field,” Bevan said, “we worry they may not be enough.”

The immediate impact of Katrina was felt as far north as Jackson, where the Mississippi Animal Rescue League struggled for days with a full shelter but no electricity or running water.

“They are getting by on tubs and 55-gallon drums that they were able to fill with water prior to the storm,” e-mailed Brenda Shoss of Kinship Circle on September 2. “They are also staffing the State Fair Grounds, where they are caring for 147 animals from evacuees.”
Community Animal Rescue & Adoption and several other small Jackson groups helped to handle the influx.

Five Animal Rescue League of Boston staffers including chief operating officer Nick Gilman arrived on September 2 to set up an emergency rescue shelter at the Jackson fairgrounds. Gilman headed the Humane Society of the U.S. disaster relief team during the early 1990s and later led American Humane Association disaster relief operations.

Later, inmates from the Dixon Correctional Institute in Jackson took over care of 160 dogs, five ducks, five geese, 17 hens and three roosters, James Minton of the Baton Rouge Advocate reported, as HSUS closed its rescue centers after five weeks in the field.

While dozens of organizatons ran rescue centers to help the animal victims, the two largest were those established by HSUS at the Lamar-Dixon Exhibition Arena in Gonzales, Louisiana, and at the fairgrounds in Hattiesburg, Missisippi. At peak during the first three weeks of September, each center handled more than 750 dogs, 300 cats, and 250 animals of other species from hamsters to horses.

Lamar-Dixon was closed to new animal intakes on September 30, with about 500 animals still awaiting transport to humane societies farther from New Orleans, where they would be fostered and would eventually be put up for adoption if unclaimed.

Search-and-rescue teams coordinated by HSUS volunteer Jane Garrison and a data entry team updating rescue lists were to continue operating until October 15.

“We are recovering family pets who have survived on the streets, under houses, and anywhere they could,” said David Meyer of 1-800-Save-A-Pet. Meyer returned home to Los Angeles in early October after two weeks in the New Orleans area.

The average volunteer stint was three days.

Best Friends

The Best Friends Animal Society rescue operation, the first to do water rescue, was headed by national outreach director Paul Berry, who in 1995 founded the Southern Animal Foundation in New Orleans. Berry eventually coordinated a team of 13 Best Friends staff, three veterinarians, three vet techs, and up to 50 volunteers per day.

While the Southern Animal Found-ation evacuated to Dallas, Berry “arrived in the area on August 30th, the day after Katrina blew through,” Best Friends cofounder Francis Battista told ANIMAL PEOPLE. “We had early access to the city through our cooperation with Jefferson Parish animal control director Bert Smith, and began relieving his shelter of overflow,” Battista said.

“His Eastbank shelter was dead in the water,” elaborated Best Friends president Michael Mountain, “and he had been evacuating his animals to the Franklinton fairgrounds. He had no staff to help him and could only stack animals in crates. We brought four people including a vet to hold the fort in Franklinton, and started working with Bert to get animals out of his Westbank shelter. We’d bring a truckload every day, and were soon able to bring all of the animals to St. Francis.”

Best Friends personnel on September 2 picked up more than 100 dogs and cats on their first day of field work, Mountain told Anita Manning of USA Today.

Eventually Best Friends evacuated more than 1,000 dogs and cats, an emu, and a pig who had been mauled by dogs to the St. Francis Animal Sanctuary, near Tylertown, Mississippi, three hours north of New Orleans, which already had about 500 animals on hand when the rescue effort started.

Stranded and waiting (Troy Snow)
By September 3, Best Friends staff and volunteers were at work expanding the sanctuary to hold more than 1,000 animals, adding buildings, fencing, generators, and everything else needed to handle the influx.

As the first organization to recover animals, Best Friends received national publicity––and more offers of help than the staff left back at headquarters in Kanab, Utah, could handle.

“We’re getting 5,000 to 7,000 e-mails plus 1,000 phone calls every day,” spokesperson Aileen Walden said on September 9, explaining a backlog of unreturned messages.

Best Friends is believed to have the largest volunteer pool of any U.S. animal charity, but even Best Friends came up short-handed against the magnitude of the New Orleans disaster. The Best Friends staff became so depleted that the No More Homeless Pets conference scheduled for October 21-23 in Boston was cancelled, as was the American Humane Association conference, which was to have been held from September 29 to October 1 in Austin.

“It’s really obvious that there are not remotely enough rescuers out there,” Mountain e-mailed on September 18.

“We got into St. Bernard on Sep-tember 16, at the request of parish animal control director Cecile Trog and councilman Mark Madary, and to the best of our knowledge were the first outside animal rescue organization in there. We heard it rumored that the HSUS had a team there, but as we went around, rescuing animals and doing an assessment, we didn’t see any others––just a few independent rescuers and residents helping a few animals, along with military people, unofficially looking after animals as they can.

“When our teams were out in boats in Orleans Parish,” Mountain continued, “we only saw a couple of other boats: one HSUS rescue boat, followed by a boat of photographers and videographers. We also know of one veterinarian doing rescue in St. Bernard, but again, he’s independent.

“In St. Bernard, there are still thousands upon thousands of animals locked in homes or wandering the muddy streets. The animals are on their last legs. It is a terrible sight to behold.”

Meanwhile, “Hurricane Rita threatened to tear the St. Francis sanctuary apart, but steered away,” Mountain recalled. “We were all prepared, and had received a special donation of hundreds of plastic igloos for the dogs to hide in if necessary during the storm.”

H.S. of Louisiana

The Humane Society of Louisiana, flooded out of New Orleans, also found refuge at the St. Francis Animal Sanctuary.

“We barely managed to get every one of our 100 sanctuary animals to Tyler-town,” Humane Society of Louisiana president Dana Nesbitt told ANIMAL PEOPLE. “It was an extraordinarily difficult evacuation. Tylertown was also hit by Katrina,” with trees and power lines down throughout the vicinity, “but at least the animals didn’t drown!

“We set up adjacent to the St. Francis Animal Sanctuary without water, phone service, supplies, or electricity,” Nesbitt continued. “Part of the roof of the building blew off, and the animals and their caretakers are hot, cramped and miserable.

“We will be unable to return to New Orleans for months,” Nesbitt anticipated. “Our entire donor base has been wiped out, and we are without operating funds. I am temporarily homeless, as are so many, and without resources, having fled my home with more than 25 animals.”

While Humane Society of Louisiana executive director Jeff Dorson and animal services director Johnna Harris remained in Tylertown, running the temporary shelter and field rescue operations, Nesbitt set up a temporary business office in Sharon Center, Ohio.

Through October 2, the Humane Society of Louisiana had housed about 350 animals at the Tylertown encampment.

The American SPCA

While HSUS handled the overall management of the Lamar-Dixon and Hattiesburg rescue center and water rescue operations, the ASPCA took charge of identifying the incoming animals from whatever sparse clues were available.

Even the colors of many new animals were unclear until they were bathed.

Daily intake peaked at 775 on September 15, the first day ANIMAL PEOPLE visited.

“As New Orleans animals are brought to the staging area, they are photo-graphed by Cajun Clicker Computer Organization to expedite reuniting them with their families,” the ASPCA web site explained. “Petfinder.com is hosting the database of information on these displaced pets. The ASPCA is working with the Austin Humane Society to establish a hotline for hurricane evacuees from Louisiana and Mississippi who need help in locating their animals,” the web site continued.

“Within the first few days of operation,” the ASPCA said, “the Austin Humane Society has taken in over 75 animals and reunited 15 pets with their people.”

The ASPCA also participated in water rescue. The first ASPCA water rescue mission, undertaken on September 5 with personnel from Spring Farm Cares in Clinton, New York, netted “25 cats, 14 dogs, one pet snake, and a gentleman who been overlooked by earlier rescuers,” ASPCA National Outreach spokesperson Sandy Monterose said. Gaining experience, the team picked up 140 animals the next day.

But there were nonetheless problems. The ASPCA mobile spay/neuter van, driven to New Orleans by mobile unit manager Chris Fagan and special events and outreach manager Allison Cardona, picked up 16 dogs and a kitten on its first rescue mission. Trying to return to Lamar-Dixon through streets littered with debris, the van blew two tires.

“Chris and Mike West from the disaster response team Code 3 went hunting for tires from abandoned vehicles,” reported the ASPCA web site. “Chris had to do a ‘water rescue’ to obtain the second tire.

“Exhausted and now very late, the crew headed to Lamar-Dixon. They were met by armed guards denying them access. Lamar-Dixon had reached its maximum occupancy, and the guards’ orders were to turn away anyone coming with animals.

“They were instructed to head to Baton Rouge to leave the animals at Louisiana State University,” the ASPCA web site continued. “There they were turned away because the LSU site is for owned animals, not strays.

“After pulling a few strings,” the web site finished, “they were finally able to unload their precious cargo and call it a night.

“They were luckier than many rescuers, who ended up caring for their rescued animals in a strip mall parking lot” near Lamar-Dixon, until animals at Lamar-Dixon who had been adequately identified could be evacuated to shelters in Texas and Calfornia, opening up space for the new arrivals.

A second ASPCA team arrived on September 6.

Shelters damaged

ASPCA southern regional shelter outreach manager Laura Lanza did shelter damage assessment, having become familiar with the disaster area during 18 years as director of Calcasieu Parish Animal Services. Lanza reported on September 20 that eight animal shelters had been completely destroyed by Katrina, including those of the Louisiana SPCA, St. Bernard Parish and Placquemine Parish animal control, and Jefferson Parish SPCA & Animal Services in Louisiana, plus the Humane Society of Southern Mississippi, the Biloxi Animal Shelter, the St. Frances Animal Shelter, and Waveland Animal Shelter in Mississippi.

Damaged facilities in Louisiana, according to Lanza, included those of the Riverlands SPCA, Slidell Animal Shelter, Humane Society of Louisiana, Washington Humane Society, St. Charles Parish Humane Society, St. John Humane Society, Bogalusa Animal Shelter, St. Tammany Humane Society, and the St. Tammany Animal Shelter.

Also damaged was the Pearlington Humane Society in Mississippi.

While several of the shelters that Lanza listed were soon back up and running, that just meant they were helping to cope with an expanding crisis.

Seventeen dogs and six cats drowned at the Humane Society of Southern Mississippi in Gulfport, while 125 animals survived by swimming for hours, according to Associated Press.

By September 29, the mucked-out facilities were inundated again––by animals.

“Dogs and cats are pouring in,” In Defense of Animals reported. “The shelter is up and running and so by law, must take the strays. The Humane Society of Southern Mississippi is releasing animals to any nonprofit groups who can send drivers to get them. They are not euthanizing now, but will be after October 5,” when the required holding time for the first animals received after Katrina was to expire.

“Our immediate needs are being taken care of by HSUS, Project Halo, and animal control officers from around the Southeast,” Humane Society of Southern Mississippi president Tara High posted, but acknowledged an urgent need for veterinary help after the American Veterinary Medical Association demobilized their Veterinary Medical Assistance Team on October 1.

The ASPCA on September 21 acknowledged having raised more than $9 million for animal relief after Hurricane Katrina, of which $1 million had already been spent for emergency relief and $2.5 million was pledged to help stricken humane societies rebuild. The funding was shared among 38 organizations, with the largest sums, $200,000 each, allocated to the Louisiana SPCA and Humane Society of Southern Mississippi.

The $2.5 ASPCA pledge for shelter rebuilding was matched by HSUS, which reportedly raised more than $20 million around the Katrina/Rita crisis.

The ASPCA and HSUS “are seeking total funding of $10 - $15 million for shelter reconstruction, and will begin appealing immediately to pet-friendly corporations, the government, and other sources to attain the financial goal,” a press release stated.

IDA & Stray Rescue

“In the first weeks after Hurricane Katrina, Stray Rescue of St. Louis arranged foster homes for more than 100 animals and collected more than 400 donated kennels,” wrote Sarah Casey Newman of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

After trying unsuccessfully to set up a temporary animal shelter near the Red Cross shelter for displaced people at the St. Louis airport, Stray Rescue partnered with Project Hope, of Grenada, Mississippi, sponsored by In Defense of Animals. “We set up a camp on the beach in Waveland, Mississippi,” Stray Rescue founder Randy Grim told Newman.

Waveland, population 7,000, 35 miles east of New Orleans, was among the hardest hit communities. “At night, we’d set traps and rescue animals,” Grim explained. “We’d take them back to the MASH units, where the vets would take care of them. Then we’d number, tag, and photograph them, and truck them to Hattiesburg, to be held for 30 days to give their owners time to find and claim them.”

“For days,” the IDA web site reported on September 7, “Project Hope director Doll Stanley helped with relief efforts in Jackson while waiting to get her team into the hardest-hit areas of Mississippi. While her efforts were helpful in Jackson, Doll knew the situation was far worse further south. Finally, the National Guard gave them permission to pass, and they set out in a convoy of three vehicles to Kiln, in Hancock County. Along the way, they delivered hay and dog food,” and collected stray homeless dogs and cats, for relay to Citizens for Animal Protection in Houston.

Later, Project Hope and Stray Rescue relayed animals to St. Louis for adoption in a series of volunteer convoys.

A second IDA team headed by Debbie Young arrived in New Orleans on October 1, as other rescue groups were going home, to help capture the dogs and cats who were still at large in neighborhoods soon to be bulldozed.

IDA office manager Anita Carswell won brief fame when USA Today profiled her rescue of a cat named Phoenix.

Kinship Circle

Kinship Circle volunteers Brenda Shoss and Janet Enoch, also of St. Louis, and Julia Fisher of Mobile, distinguished themselves throughout the Katrina/Rita crisis by preparing and distributing daily electronic briefings for volunteers. They also maintained a storage depot for donated supplies in Mobile.

By September 3, Shoss told ANIMAL PEOPLE, “Offering information has turned into a full time job mobilizing volunteers, veterinarians, vet techs, transport services, and supplies. We’ve been sending help––and talking to Best Friends, HSUS, Pasado’s, et al to not send people where they are unwanted. I get about 200 volunteer inquiries a day,” Shoss said, “and have organized databases to match people to need.”

But Shoss and Enoch were frustrated by the lack of electronic media attention to animal rescue during the first week of the disaster. On September 4 they drafted an open letter to “to over 200 media contacts at CNN, NBC, CBS, ABC and Fox TV news,” put it together with a selection of print media news items collected by Cathy Czapla of ANIMAL PEOPLE, and asked their readers to reinforce the message that stranded animals needed to be noticed.

“We emailed. We faxed. We called. All day,” Shoss summarized. “Tonight, Larry King mentioned animal disaster relief twice in his three-hour special, How You Can Help, referencing information from ASPCA.”

Yet Shoss did not declare victory. Instead, she urged supporters to back off the campaign.

“I just got off the phone with Fox producer David Brown,” Shoss continued. “Unfortunately, our emails are blocking the onsite devices they used to communicate with reporters in stricken areas. Mr. Brown was extremely polite and assured me animal disaster relief resources would be posted on Fox’s website, and that Jack Hanna had covered this issue in a two-hour special. We assume CNN, ABC, CBS and NBC are experiencing the same problems from e-mail overload.

“Ultimately, these media outlets could block our emails,” Shoss warned, “defeating our plea for the animals.”

Nothing more was heard about the e-mail and call-in barrage, but from September 4 on, both television and print media paid markedly more attention to animal rescue.

“This is the largest animal rescue in the history of the United States,” Unified Incident Command for Animal Rescue spokesperson Larry Hawkins told Baton Rouge Advocate reporter Will Sentiel.

Sentiel noted the involvement of the Louisiana Department of Agriculture & Forestry, the USDA, the Louisiana Veterinary Medical Association’s Small Animal Response Team, the Louisiana State University School of Veterinary Medicine and the Louisiana SPCA––but those were only some of the many organizations that lent a hand.

“Noah’s Ark is pretty full,” Humane Society of North Texas director of animal care Tammy Kirkpatrick told Paul J. Weber of Associated Press. ––Merritt Clifton

How ANIMAL PEOPLE readers fared in Katrina Among the ANIMAL PEOPLE readers in New Orleans were longtime neighbors Odette Grosz and Gayle and Pinckney Wood.

“Odette went to Natchez with Minnie the Moocher, a rescued miniature pincher,” Pinckney Wood e-mailed late on August 28, hours before Hurricane Katrina hit. “Gayle and I are here in New Orleans waiting. We have too many animals to easily evacuate.”

Grosz and the Woods were out of touch throughout the first week after the levies broke.
“I don’t know that I will ever go back, not even to see my house,” Grosz at last e-mailed on September 6. “In Kenner,” she added, “a friend was cutting trees, and had his little dog at his feet, when five starving dogs ran up and grabbed his pet. He tried to chase them down, but they were too swift, and killed and ate his dog in front of his eyes!”

Pinckney Wood was not heard from again until September 18. “Gayle and I made it out after the water rose, with four dogs and nine cats, more than just our pets,” he finally reported from Lafayette. “We stayed in the neighborhood doing search and rescue after we rescued ourselves.”

Also losing homes to Katrina were pro-animal attorney Marilyn David of Biloxi and Mississippi Friends of Animals founder Elaine Adair in Gulfport.

“I am okay. I evacuated to Starkville, Mississippi, with my three dogs,” David e-mailed. “My house is gone. All that’s left is the slab and some two-by-fours holding up the roof.”

Adair lost a beachfront home, but kept the Camille Bed & Breakfast six blocks inland, where for a few days she hosted New York Times reporter Sewell Chan.