One of the 50 animals that had to be relocated from Houston Pets Alive! after the facility’s power lines were cut.
A Northwest Houston nonprofit animal rescue is expecting a significant financial setback after its clinic lost power on Monday.
Houston Pets Alive! staff members arrived at the facility around 7 a.m. and discovered that the building was without electricity. Upon further inspection, it was found that several power lines and utility poles supplying power to the clinic had been cut.
All 50 animals housed at the shelter were relocated into emergency foster care as a result, according to Houston Pets Alive! Marketing Manager Sarah Brown.
“Our foster coordinator was working tirelessly yesterday, trying to reach out to people to foster,” Brown said. “We were so blessed with the fosters that we do have. Lots of people stepped up. Fosters that hadn’t fostered in a few years even.”
Brown said CenterPoint Energy restored power to the clinic Monday evening, and will continue to handle the restoration of the damaged power lines. It is unclear when the repairs will be completed.
Brown expects animals to begin moving back into the facility throughout the week, but full capacity won’t be possible for at least a week.
Brown said that the organization also had to dispose of vaccines and medications that were worth “thousands of dollars”.
Houston Pets Alive! has since created a donation page that can be accessed through its social media accounts and official website. As of Tuesday evening, the organization had already managed to raise $4,624.68 out of an initial goal of $4,500.
“We did lose a full day of clinic revenue, so it will take us a significant amount of time to earn that money back,” Brown said. “We used a lot of our extra supply resources that we have on hand so that we could get our animals into fosters. So, replenishing some of those supplies is not something that happens overnight. That’ll also take a few weeks.”
The organization claimed that the incident was a “deliberate act of vandalism” in a press release posted to its website.
The Houston Police Department’s Media Relations Office said a motive has not been established after an online police report was filed.