BRAWA takes preventative steps against flooding, receives a lot of donations

By MICHAEL CRIMMINS
Glasgow News 1

A front of severe storms passed through Barren County at the end of June. The storms, that brought high winds, lighting, thunder and torrential rain, left thousands in the city and the county without power and caused damage to trees and buildings. The Barren River Animal Welfare Association was one such building devastated by the June storms.

According to Connie Greer, general manager at BRAWA, the whole shelter flooded in 10 minutes, which had never happened before. She said it had always flooded on one side of the building or the other.

Greer said she was the first person that made it to the shelter that night. Driving “way above” the speed limit, she said, she dodged trees and endured the high winds only to find the majority of Trojan Trail blocked by water “rushing across the road.”

After arriving to the shelter, by taking the longer back roads, using the small flashlight and the headlights of her truck, she waited for help to arrive.

“You want to get in there to save the animals,” Greer said. “But I thought ‘If I fall I’m going to drown.’ I mean, the current was so strong.”

BRAWA is located in a flood plain, the lowest point of Trojan Trail, because of that, Greer said, they are taking steps to prevent such a flood from happening again.

One big thing they have done is to purchase a bus in April 2022 that is capable of holding all the dogs currently housed at the shelter.

“We had kind of a crazy idea: ‘How can we get the animals out all together quickly?’ so the bus was brought in,” Greer said.

According to Greer, the bus has two rows of cages. The cats, in cat carriers, will be stacked in a rescue van.

“The whole idea was if we ever had to evacuate we’d have somewhere we could put all the animals,” Greer said. “It can house every single dog we have at the facility right now.”

Greer said, thankfully BRAWA has never had to use the “BRAWA Bus” for its evacuation purpose so far.

She also said the shelter has been working with an engineering company to channel the water away from BRAWA.

“We’ve been working with an engineering company that has designed a plan to come in and build a big berm system around the shelter that would pump out rainwater,” Greer said.

She said, while the cost of the permit was steep it was not comparable to the cost of moving the shelter somewhere that is not a flood plain.

“A lot of people would like to see us pack up and build a shelter elsewhere,” Greer said. “We can’t just pack up and move. We’re talking about $3 million to literally take this same set up and put it somewhere else. We are an individual nonprofit, we are not run by the city, we are not funded by the city or the county, so all the money that comes into the shelter…is what we rely on. So, it takes a little time and money to do all those wonderful things.”

“We’re working on it,” Greer added.

The shelter also has “flood gates,” no bigger than the standard baby gate, that suction to the door that holds back water in offices and rooms “that can’t get wet.”

“It goes into the door jam and you expand it out and it has an inner bladder you pump up to seal it on the door,” Greer said. “That will hold quite a bit of water back.”

In the aftermath of the flood, Greer said, the community gathered around BRAWA to help with repairs. People have also made monetary donations and given the shelter tons of items, like bleach and paper towels. She is also planning on creating an Amazon Wishlist with items they need.

“It’s so nice to be from a small community because everyone ropes around each other and helps,” Greer said. “It’s a wonderful feeling.”

She said there has been some pushback, mainly from people who want to see BRAWA relocate, but that she is happy to get so many donations. Despite the quantity of donations, the shelter is still accepting cleaning supplies and other materials listed on BRAWA’s website.

“We’ve definitely had a lot of community support,” Greer said.

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