CHARLESTON, W.Va. — Flooding that occurred at the Kanawha-Charleston Humane Association Thursday turned out to be a blessing in disguise.
Those at the humane society were alarmed to be receiving calls from Kanawha County Metro 911 Thursday morning informing them that water levels were dangerously high at the shelter following a round of overnight thunderstorms that had brought about severe flash flooding across the area, and that the animals needed to be moved to safety immediately.
However, Kanawha-Charleston Humane Association Community Engagement Manager Angie Gillenwater said those fears over what to do with all of their animals in the already over-crowded facility quickly turned to delight as members of the community started pouring in to either adopt or foster a number of them.
Gillenwater said the effort was heartwarming and surreal in a time of chaos and turmoil.
“Thank you doesn’t even begin to cover what we mean when we say that, we can’t thank our community enough for helping us during that time,” Gillenwater said. “Truly without all of these people coming to get these animals, we would not have been able to successfully move all of these dogs to a safe area of the shelter just because we are so full.”
Gillenwater said Thursday resulted in a total of 17 adoptions, around 30 fosters and two dogs being reunited with their owners.
She said while it turned out that the flood waters had gotten scarily close to where the animals were kept in their kennels, it had fortunately already started to recede by the time humane association staff were able to come in to get the animals to higher ground.
However, Gillenwater recalls at first how she couldn’t believe that the water levels had risen to the point that Metro 911 was calling them. 
“And then I saw the pictures of it and I kind of just sat there in shock a little bit, just couldn’t believe that we were actually in this situation, not only that the animals were in this situation but that also our staff was going to have to brave these waters,” she said.
Gillenwater said, though, that based on past unfortunate situations that had occurred at the shelter, such as when a U-Haul truck crashed into the building early last year, they already knew of the community’s capacity in stepping into action during times of great need.
“From the U-Haul crashing into the building we kind of already had a little bit more preparation as far as what to expect and how to send animals out to adopters and fosters on such a massive scale,” she said.
She said people were coming in to adopt and foster the animals as early as 8 a.m. Thursday. Gillenwater said people as far as Barboursville, Huntington and Teays Valley, as well as local community members in the Charleston area stepped up.
Gillenwater said the shelter has stayed consistently full for a longtime now, even having to use extra kennels that aren’t their own.
And she said problems beyond their control make it even more of a challenge to mitigate the full-capacity issue.
“We’ve been kind of making it work, and then every time we get into a groove of kind of making things work, it seems a wrench is thrown in, whether it be the U-Haul, the power going out in the middle of summer, you know, high flood waters,” Gillenwater said.
However, Gillenwater said that even just fostering the animals really helps them get their spacing issues under control.
She said they are hoping to keep the fostering/ adopting momentum going following the flood.
Gillenwater said they were taking all day Friday to map out additional plans on what to do for the next round of rain this weekend, and how to create more space if any of the fosters were returned on Friday.
She said they also planned to get the downstairs kennel area cleaned up, because, while no flood waters actually made it into the building, there was a lot of muddy traction on the floors leftover from all of the people coming in and out Thursday.
Gillenwater said if you can’t adopt or foster an animal, there are other ways you can help them out as well, such as by volunteering or donating supplies like leashes, collars, food, blankets and pet toys.