These are great pictures of Tony Alsup driving his specially bought and converted school bus with the seats removed and replaced by 53 dogs and 11 cats in carriers.
Tony Alsup is a real go-getter. During Hurricane Harvey he decided to buy a school bus to help rescue cats and dogs from shelters where they were becoming lost or overcrowded due to the hurricane. Since Hurricane Harvey he has helped with rescues during hurricanes Irma and Maria. Now he’s doing it again during Hurricane Florence.
Tony Alsup wants to start his own animal rescue organization. I would say that he’s already doing it! As he was rescuing animals he communicated on Facebook to say there was room for more. He wasn’t going to leave any animal behind. He says they are lives just like human lives. He would do anything to help them and he’ll pay for all the fuel and other costs to help save them.
Taking cats and dogs from shelters in the path of the hurricane
Along the way he has stopped at various animal rescue organizations including: Humane Society of North Myrtle Beach, the Devon County Animal Shelter, another shelter in Orangeburg South Carolina and St Francis Animal Centre in Georgetown South Carolina.
The St Francis Animal Centre said that he was rescuing all the “leftover” pets that the shelter couldn’t seem to pass on to anyone else to rescue. He seems to specialise in the animals are no one wants to help.
Tony Alsup first drove to Foley, Alabama where he has a friend, Angela Eib-Maddux, who opened her privately run dog shelter to accept the new arrivals. They were given a spa treatment! Then they found enough shelters or foster homes to take some of the animals. Some people came to adopt them while Tony coordinated things with volunteers and other animal shelters to meet him in Knoxville, Tennessee. In Knoxville he handed over 40 other animals. The remaining cats and dogs went to vacant shelters across the country.
Wants to do more
He is not done yet. He took a short rest and then got back on the road last Sunday to drove to a waffle house outside Fayetteville for a bite to eat.
Today he’s going to head to Wilmington, North Carolina provided the roads are clear. He’s heard that the roads are closed and no one can get through. But there’s a shelter that needs his help, he says, so he’s going to try.
Tony Alsup is one of those heroic volunteers who are stepping up to the plate to help animals during another catastrophic hurricane affecting the east coast of America.
Source: The Washington Post.
