Woman helps rescue more than 1,000 abandoned animals during Harvey

HOUSTON – Melisa Hill spent a week driving back and forth between Huntsville and Beaumont, rescuing animals in need during Hurricane Harvey.

A year after the storm, she said it still hurts to know they lost more than they saved.

“I kept telling my mom, 'I've got to go. I've got to get down there and do something,'” Hill said.

So Hill, a bloodhound handler for the Texas Department of Corrections, borrowed a friend’s stock trailer, loaded up her horse along with some donated hay and feed and ventured out on her mission to make a difference.

“These animals, they didn't have a choice. They were left stranded," Hill said.

Her base of operations: Ford Arena.

She said law enforcement and the Cajun Navy often gave her and 30 or so other volunteers she was working with their marching orders, providing them with addresses and the best routes to get there.

For 21 hours a day, they would go as far as their trucks would take them before getting on horseback. Thinking back on it, her emotions still get the best of her.

“We were in there. We were cutting fences, swimming horses out. We would go in,” Hill said.

In all, they saved about 1,000 cattle, 100 horses and countless dogs that were tied or chained up, not to mention cats.

It felt as though the rescue missions were never-ending.

“It was everything we could do to keep going, we were tired, we were hungry, but the animals had to come first. They have souls. They knew they were dying, and I felt like we needed to go in there and get them out,” Hill said.

While Harvey took so much from so many, it also revealed a kind of strength and resilience that has come to define the actions of people like Hill.

“I'm not a hero. I'm just a person who felt a need to go down there and do what needed to be done,” Hill said.

Hill said she still keeps in touch with many of the people she worked with side by side. They started out as a group of strangers, but when all was said and done, they were more like family.


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Award-winning journalist, adventure seeker, explorer, dog lover.