I hadn’t been sleeping well for almost a week. It was 1992 and my current task of developing an evacuation plan for a large animal shelter was weighing on me. Everyday I ran the worst case scenarios and then tried to come up with a plan to minimize the chances of losing animals and people. When I got to the cattery, I faced my largest challenge.
There were approximately 20 individually kenneled cats in each of the four rooms and 5-10 litters of kittens. The main transportation device for the cats was a standard plastic carrier which was stored outside of the cattery due to a lack of space. There were three— five animal care technicians on for each shift in the cattery and after running a timed drill I discovered that it would take them close to two and half hours to evacuate all four rooms plus the examination area. Short of throwing open the cages and chasing them out the door my options were limited and many of them unpleasant.
The carrier was the problem. First, it was stored outside the cat rooms because it was bulky and took up too much space. Second, wrestling an unwilling cat into the small opening and actually getting the door closed was another problem. Then there was carrying the crates to safety. One tech could manage two—four tops. I knew that people often transported their cats in pillowcases but this was a crude option as there was no way to keep it closed and it was poorly ventilated.
The fabricated disasters that I used in running scenarios offered very little warning which translated to very little time. It seemed possible that, without some other option for the cattery, animal and human life would be jeopardized and likely lost. To drive the point home, a small animal shelter in a neighboring county faced a fire just months earlier. Animals were lost and staff members were injured. This is when I stopped sleeping and became frustrated and more than a little depressed.
After several restless nights preceded by hours of thinking and thinking, I shot out of bed with an idea for a souped-up pillowcase. I had never invented anything or developed a product of any kind but I was determined to put my idea together. After a bit of time at the drawing board and a couple of prototypes, the EVACSAK™ was born. It made its debut at the 1993 flood in Missouri where Terry Crisp, longtime rescuer and author of Out of Harm's Way, took it into the field and had this to say: “The EVACSAK helped cut evacuation time by taking up less space in the rescue boats than the standard wire transfer cages.”
For several years the EVACSAK™ it was offered only to animal shelters and animal rescue groups through an equipment supplier. In 2007 I took back the manufacturing and distribution rights to the EVACSAK™ in order to update the design, make it more affordable for animal groups, available to consumers and to channel more of the profits back to the animals. I’m proud to say that the EVACSAK™ has continued to aid animal rescue workers around the world since its inception in1993.
Rebecca A. Rodriguez More tidbits about the EVACSAK™
Rebecca A. Rodriguez, developer of the EVACSAKTM, along with her hero MR. ED.
Rebecca A. Rodriguez is a longtime animal advocate who founded a humane society on the island of Guam in 1989
(Guam Animals In Need). Over the years she has remained active in various animal projects and currently provides sanctuary and rehabilitative services to dogs with behavioral problems due to neglect and / or abuse. Aside from her work with animals, she is also a writer and an award-winning filmmaker.
