Montgomery County animal rescue center is healing and picking up the pieces after a fire killed at least a dozen cats and several are still missing.
Pawsibilities Animal Rescue has been considered a safe haven for animals over the past 15 years. Last Sunday, flames ripped through its barn killing 15 cats, two rabbits, and a chicken.
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WATCH HERESher Carroll’s daughter Samantha owns the rescue and the barn.
“She got some chickens out. She just got out of the way. Firemen came. They’re right up the road, thankfully, but it didn’t matter. It was just too fast,” Carroll said.
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SIGN UP Samantha Carroll said the barn, which is a few miles away from the rescue’s main center in Skippack Village, acted as a sanctuary for the rescue and housed cats that were sick or not available for adoption.
“They either hated people or were angry and couldn’t be here,” Carroll said. “A lot of those are the ones we’re still missing, because they can inside or can go outside.”
About a dozen of the cats that were missing have been found uninjured and at least six are still unaccounted for, she told NBC 10. Carroll said since the fire, volunteers with the rescue have stepped up.
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“We have a lot of cats here. There’s like 20 cats here, a lot more in foster,” she said. “They [cats] don’t care if we don’t have space for them to go to if they’re getting sick, so we have a lot more volunteers taking cats home.”
On Saturday, an open house and vigil was held at the Skippack Village rescue to reflect on the past week and thank the community for its support. Kimberly Sked, a coordinator with the Friends of Burlington County Animal Shelter, said Pawsibilities has helped out their animal shelter in New Jersey multiple times.
“Whenever we had cats that were FeLV positive or FIV positive, even if they weren’t super friendly, Samantha has always said yes to us. She’s never said no,” Sked said.
The fire has been a devastating blow to the entire animal rescue community given the rescue’s role in being a reliable partner, Sked said.
“We, just this fall, had a couple of cats that were not positive for either disease but were just being overlooked in our shelter,” she said. “They were black cats. They both had cloudy eye, and they just weren’t getting adopted. They weren’t moving and lingering too long. When I reached out to Samantha to see if maybe they’d have a better shot with different eyes and a different location, she always said yes.”
Carroll said while her organization lost the farm, they have not lost hope in the mission. They have appreciated the community’s outpouring of support, she said.
“Even Sunday, no one could get down our road,” she recalled. “The church next to us, we’re friends with the pastor there and they were texting me, ‘There’s people here.’ I’m like ‘Who?’ Just people who showed up and wanted to help.”
The cause of the fire remains unknown as this point, Carroll said.
