Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, wildfires, tornadoes, and outbreaks of diseases at equine facilities raised awareness of disaster planning this year in the horse industry. That was reflected by the large crowd at the Community Disaster Planning table topic session at the American Association of Equine Practitioners’ Convention, held Dec. 3-7 in Seattle, Wash.

Moderators Nathan Slovis, DVM, Dipl. ACVIM, of Hagyard Equine Medical Institute in Lexington, Ky., and Roberta Dwyer, DVM, MS, Dipl. ACVPM, of the Gluck Equine Research Center at the University of Kentucky, called on expertise from the audience to form a discussion panel during the table topic. Included in that panel was John Madigan, DVM, MS, Dipl. ACVIM, professor in the department of veterinary medicine and epidemiology at the University of California, Davis; Tomas Gimenez, DrMedVet, professor of animal and veterinary science at Clemson University; Rebecca Gimenez, PhD, a member of the American Veterinary Medical Association’s Veterinary Medical Assistance Team; Dana Zimmel, DVM, Dipl. ACVIM, ABVP, assistant professor of equine extension in the department of large animal clinical sciences at the University of Florida; and Terry Paik, DVM, a private practitioner from San Diego, Calif.

Slovis said the AAEP has formed a new Emergency Preparedness Committee, which will feature an AAEP member emergency disaster liaison for each state. Each liason will have necessary resources in cases of disaster to be a key contact person in that state.

“In an emergency, a lot of us are out of state and our first instinct is to drive down and help,” said Slovis. Unless one is working for an organized, recognized animal rescue group or as a government resource, that usually isn’t helpful to those persons in the disaster areas