GROUP RALLIES TO RESCUE ANIMALS FROM FLOODWATERS.

Byline: Dixie Reid Scripps-McClatchy Western Service

Toni led someone else's stallion to safety in the rural Yuba County community of Arboga on Friday afternoon. The horse was spooked and soaked.

``We are getting out the animals that are drowning,'' said Toni, who declined to give her last name. ``We had to cut chain-link fences. We got dogs out that were on their tippy-toes. They could not escape.''

As more river levees gave way and churning water spread across the Sacramento area, efforts began in earnest on Friday to rescue the flood's animal victims.

Some of the stories were heroic - the TV helicopter's rescue of a dog named Rodeo who'd spent the day alone on a house roof in Olivehurst, floodwaters churning below. Some were heartbreaking, such as that of the Yuba County dairy farmer who had to leave 300 cows behind when water gobbled up the roadway to his barn.

Leading the way to help stranded animals was United Animal Nations, a Sacramento-based organization whose Emergency Animal Rescue Service has responded to disasters as far-ranging as the Northridge Earthquake and the Midwest floods over the last decade.

Working with Sacramento and Yuba County animal control officers, local Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals chapters and area veterinarians, EARS set up a rescued-animal staging area at the Placer County Fairgrounds in Roseville. Terri Crisp, director of animal rescue services, expects that 1,000 animals will be housed in the fairgrounds' barns and pasture before the weekend is over.

``As long as people can't get in to get their animals, they depend on us,'' said Crisp. ``As long as they can't live in their house, they need a place to keep the animals. We're like the Red Cross. We can get them through the crisis.''

By Friday evening, nearly 200 animals had arrived at the staging area. Some came from the Marysville airport, where they had been dropped off by crews on rescue helicopters and boats. Later, the flooded-out Yuba County animal control facility delivered 30 dogs and one cat.

It won't be until Friday morning that EARS, and its four dozen volunteers, will set out in boats to look for needy animals.

But as soon as word got out that EARS had its operation in place, calls began to pour in with offers of help. Many people said they'd provide foster care for lost and homeless animals - anything from birds to cattle. A man came with a flat-bottom boat on a trailer behind his pickup. A woman stopped by to offer to find free motel rooms for the volunteers.

``Great,'' said Dean Richman, the Los Angeles resident who coordinates disaster relief services for EARS. ``We were planning to sleep in the horse stalls.''

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Photo

Photo: Dave Perguidi carries his cat, Garfield, across a rain-swollen Tuolumne River in evacuating their home near Modesto.

Associated Press