Stamford Animal Control Back To Normal After Sandy

Everything's back to normal at the Stamford Animal Care & Control Shelter following the turmoil of Hurricane Sandy. All the animals seeking adoption have returned to the shelter after being displaced by the storm for several days.

"Everything went pretty well," said Officer Tilford Cobb Monday. "We didn't get hit bad at all. We lost power for a little while, but we already had the animals at Rippowam and High Ridge animal hospitals. We did pretty well here."

Cobb said the shelter itself fared well despite the electricity outage. Being so close to Shippan Point, Cobb said he was worried the building might experience flooding, but the waters never reached them.

"I thought we were going to get flooded," Cobb said. "It hasn't [flooded during a storm] since I've been here. But sometimes streets surrounding shelter will flood and we couldn't get through and cars would get stuck. But the shelter itself never really flooded and it didn't this time."

Cobb said the hospitals were contacted ahead of time so arrangements could be made. High Ridge Animal Hospital donated their space to the shelter free of charge. Rippowam Animal Hospital would also go on to donate the space after a couple days.

"The cats went to High Ridge. And we had some sick cats that had to be quarantined. We were lucky they had the space and were able to accomodate us," Cobb said. "Most of the dogs went to Rippowam. We had one trainer who took a couple home. Three or four went with other volunteers."

Cobb said they had to mobilize Sunday afternoon after getting the call from Chief Jon Fontneau that the shelter would need to be evacuated.

"He said, 'It's time to move the animals,'" Cobb said. "So we just use the work vehicles we have here. It took us a couple trips, but we got them all out. There was about 30 of them and they were pretty good. Most were well behaved. We had a couple acting tough at the vet, but everything went pretty well."