Woman Takes in 97 Stray Dogs to Keep Them Safe from Hurricane Dorian
This guardian angel has made saving dogs here life's work.
Chella Phillips is a dog lover from New Providence in the Bahamas. In fact, she runs the small nonprofit Voiceless Dogs of Nassau that helps stray dogs in the capital city find forever homes in the US.
This guardian angel was certainly looking out for the stray dogs that roam the streets when she rescued 97 of them and brought them into her own home as Hurricane Dorian crashed into the most populated island in The Bahamas on September 1, 2019.
Phillips took to posting on Facebook when she still had electricity, writing that she "managed to bring some less fortunate ones and I really appreciate some of you donating for crates.. I really needed it for the scared ones and the sick ones. so Thank you!"
As the 320+ km/h (200 mph) winds pummeled the islands, Phillips posted photos of the pups as they ran through her home. She wrote that she had barricaded the house and was playing music and ran the air conditioning to keep the dogs calm and cool.
Phillips lamented that she could not rescue all of the 65,000 strays that roam the islands. "Each island has [an] abundance of homeless dogs, my heart is so broken for the ones without a place to hide a CAT 5 monster and only God can protect them now." She ended her post, "Please pray for the Bahamas!"
Her posts went viral and support started to pour in through the PayPal address she included for people who wanted to send funds. A FundRazr campaign was started for her organization with a goal of 20K that has already raised over $170,000.
Hurricane Dorian stayed over the Bahamas for almost 48 hours with torrential rain, wind gusts that reached over 350 km/h (220 mph) and massive flooding, according to CBS News. An estimated 13,000 homes were damaged or destroyed but it is still too early to know the extent of the damage or how much aid is needed.
Phillips posted that she lost power and "the wind sounded like a train that wouldn’t pass, it was so loud, water was coming in through the seams on the windows and underneath the doors, the dogs were scared."
The hurricane has been downgraded to a tropical storm now but pet shelters and rescue organizations on the Eastern coast of the US prepared ahead of time for displaced animals from people who had to evacuate.
Phillips will have to rebuild her rescue's shelters and hopes that when the airport reopens, she can rehome the pups in the US. This kind and compassionate woman opened her heart and home to provide a refuge from the storm for 97 dogs in need. Hopefully, they will find their forever homes soon.
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