RADFORD, Va. – It’s been 8 months since Helene hit the area, and when it did, it wrecked the Radford Animal Shelter.
“It’s been busy,” said Adele Katrovitz with the Radford Animal Shelter. “We had to get pretty creative with how we were going to still provide our services.”
In September, the Radford Animal Shelter was destroyed by flooding.
Since then, the folks there have been doing what they can to continue their mission, while also restoring the shelter.
“It was like, oh, we got a mom with 6 kittens and we’re like we’ve got nowhere to put them. I took kittens home, Ashley took kittens home, we made it work,” Katrovitz said.
While they weren’t able to completely salvage the old building, they are back operating at full capacity once again in a new space right next door.
“We are back to running normally,” said Katrovitz. “It looks smaller but we’ve got the same space.”
Animal Control Officer Katrovitz said its great to be able to do their job to the fullest extent again.
“The fact everything that I need to clean kitten eyes and kitten ears is right at hand. We’ve got our scale; we’ve got all different types of food here,” said Katrovitz. “The front door is only a few feet away whereas before, we’d be right out in the back doing this, so if anyone came in the front?”
Police Chief Jerry Holdaway said they are still figuring out the entire cost of the rebuild and damage.
“Eventually i think we will be able to put a dollar amount on it but right now we are still very much still in the process of getting facility back up and running and where we need to be,” Holdaway said. “Radford is a resilient community and we have a lot of support, and this is the proof of hard work.”
They said while they still have a little bit of work to do, they are just glad to be back and operating at full capacity.