Kerry McGinnis, 30
Reuniting frantic owners with their stranded pets, she spreads much-needed cheer.
Cats, dogs, birds, turtles, fish, a ferret and a chinchilla:
Those are just some of the pets that Kerry McGinnis, a kennel manager for Manhattan's Humane Society, has helped rescue from lower
Manhattan's evacuated apartments since Sept. 11. It hasn't been easy.
"It took us over an hour to catch one woman's cats," says McGinnis, who, along with some 30 other volunteers, accompanies residents on the pet-retrieval missions. "We found the first cat, covered in dust, and
her rabbit in its cage, but we were flipping the couch, looking under the bed for the other cat. The owner was crying. We finally found it on the top shelf of a closet."
The first animal rescuers to set up operations at Pier 40 on the Hudson River, now a command post where the city's 20,000-plus displaced residents can get police escorts for brief visits to their
still off-limits apartments,
McGinnis and Michael Weltz, a Humane Society vet, have been working 12-hour shifts and have helped save more than 200 pets so far. Despite days without food or water, most of the animals have been found alive.
"She doesn't just rescue pets,"
says Patricia Sietz-Honig, who retrieved her two cats on Sept. 16 with McGinnis's help, "she reunites families."
McGinnis knows exactly what she means. "People have comfort in having their animals back," says the Ohio native, who moved to Manhattan six years ago. "For some a pet may be all they have that survived.
Parents couldn't wait to tell children, 'I've got the kitty, and she's safe.' "
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