By Cathy Scott

NEW ORLEANS, LA -- A race against time is underway for dog and cat victims of Hurricane Katrina.

Since the tropical cyclone hit some 20 days ago, an animal rescue group has been plucking people’s pets from the streets of New Orleans, specifically from the Jefferson and Orleans parishes. The last three days, however, they’ve been allowed access into St. Bernard Parish, the hardest hit section of the city. But now that Hurricane Rita is on the way, St. Bernard Parish is once again closed to rescuers and the pets they have been saving.

“Time is running out for animals still in the city,” said Michael Mountain, president of Best Friends Animal Society. “They are on the streets, locked in houses, everywhere.”

While four Best Friends’ rescue teams, working from a makeshift hurricane relief center in Tylertown, Miss. about 90 miles north of New Orleans, were combing the streets Tuesday, Mountain was meeting with a Washington, D.C. delegation, which makes up the bipartisan Congressional Caucus for Animals, asking for its help.

“We urge and implore the state and federal authorities to mount a massive effort to support animal rescue efforts to save these household pets in need,” he said.

St. Bernard Parish is particularly important for rescuers, they say, because more pets were left behind in the wake of Katrina. “A 25-foot tidal wave hit St. Bernard Parish,” said Paul Berry, who headed up the animal rescue effort the first two weeks.

Best Friends Animal Society, which runs a no-kill sanctuary on 33,000 acres in Kanab, Utah, became the first animal organization to enter St. Bernard Parish -- which lies between New Orleans and the Gulf of Mexico -- after Katrinia hit the Gulf Coast.

Ethan Gurney, director of search and rescue operations for Best Friends, said he’s noticed a change in the dogs and cats he’s picking up.

“The conditions of the animals still trapped in yards and houses is deteriorating,” Gurney said. “We’re getting them in worse and worse condition. More groups being allowed into the city needs to be a priority.”

Dogs running the streets as strays are being fed by National Guard personnel and rescue groups. Their chances of survival, he said, are better than those animals trapped inside homes.

Nydia Alexandre, a volunteer nurse at Best Friends animal relief center in Tylertown, said “the chemical burns are pretty bad.” Two examples, a black lab adult and puppy came in with extreme chemical burns when they recently were rescued.

Another example was an older poodle Gurney and his rescue teams picked up from St. Bernard Parish on Tuesday. She was dehydrated and was crashing when a veterinarian technician with the rescue crew hooked up the 8-pound dog to an IV in the middle of an evacuated street. “This is why I’m here,” said vet tech Sue Thomas of the Ashtabula (Ohio) Animal Protective League.

It’s the same reason, Gurney said, Best Friends is still in New Orleans, trying to save the animals one at a time.

The future may not be so dim for the animals, Mountain said, if more groups are allowed in to the city. The Congressional caucus is asking major rescue organizations to join the relief effort before it’s too late.