Everett shelter animals find new families after flooding

Published 1:30 am Saturday, January 24, 2026

EVERETT — When historic floods swept through Snohomish County, officials ordered over 800 people to leave their homes or businesses as a safety precaution.

One evacuation order in particular garnered a lot of attention: Everett’s municipal animal shelter, located on an island, needed to evacuate, forcing staff to find a way to get every animal safely into a temporary home while the location was closed. In a flurry of activity, dozens of volunteers and city staff members worked for hours to ensure the animals would remain safe.

Less than 24 hours after the shelter first called for help, over 120 animals were safely placed with fosters in the community.

“I think everyone took a big breath of relief when all the animals left the building,” said Leslie Wall, the assistant manager at the Everett Animal Shelter, in a Jan. 6 interview. “You can replace equipment, you can replace desks and computers and even X-ray machines. But those lives needed out of here, and they were all our responsibility as a team. And it’s just amazing that they were gone so quickly.”

But a few of those animals sent out to families across Snohomish County didn’t just get temporary shelter. They eventually found permanent homes as a result.

‘We put a plan together and we followed it’

The Everett Animal Shelter is located on Smith Island, a flat area nestled between Everett and Marysville. The city lists the shelter’s location as being within a flood hazard area.

Wall said she had been in contact with the city’s emergency management department since the flooding began. Right before the shelter closed for business at 6 p.m. Dec. 9, they got word from the city that they would have to evacuate.

The shelter had to rush find a temporary home for the more than 120 animals on site — including cats, dogs, rabbits, chinchillas and a guinea pig — as soon as possible. On top of that, they also had to clear out equipment from the shelter to prevent it from being damaged, including surgical equipment and X-ray machines.

Wall sent out a message that night to the over 900 volunteers who regularly help out at the shelter, and shelter staff spread the word further on social media, asking for help. At 11 a.m. the next day, Dec. 10, they announced they would need to start getting every animal out of the shelter.

By the time 11 a.m. came around, there was a line out the door to help. At 2 p.m. Dec. 10 — just about 20 hours after the first call for volunteers — every single one of the more than 120 animals had already been evacuated.

The community had stepped up.

“I expected a good-sized response,” Wall said. “I didn’t expect a response of that caliber.”

At one point, animal control officers from nearby areas had to start directing traffic as the vast number of people arrived. Some who showed up too late to foster an animal stayed in line, waiting in case another family wasn’t able to make it to the shelter, according to Nolla Rohr, who also fostered a cat that day.

Other volunteers from the community helped pack away food and move equipment in the shelter to counter height in case the building was damaged by flooding. Some brought food and coffee for the workers at the shelter.

“I’ll tell you what, coffees were really amazing,” Wall said, who started working at 2 a.m. that morning to place animals in foster care.

In the end, the building was not affected directly by the flooding. Only one piece of equipment, a cooler, was damaged, due to the power at the building being shut off for a number of days, Wall said. About a week after they evacuated, staff began to bring animals back into the shelter.

“It was overwhelming. But the staff here are such a cohesive team,” Wall said. “We put a plan together and we followed it, we saw it through.”

Wall was initially nervous when she heard that staff would have to fully evacuate the shelter. But going through the experience and seeing how smoothly it went, thanks to the hard work of staff and volunteers, she is more confident about the resilience of the shelter going forward.

“After seeing the turnout like that, I think the Everett Animal Shelter can probably withstand any kind of a crisis now,” Wall said.

‘This beautiful opportunity’

Initially, Everett resident Madison Travis made her way to the shelter with the goal of fostering a dog if needed. But once she picked up an 8-month-old golden retriever, Boone, as a foster, she knew the dog would be around for much longer than a couple of days.

“My mom was at work. I took him [Boone] to her work, and before we even got him home, we were ready to adopt him,” Travis said Tuesday. “We were like, ‘Where can we sign?’”

Travis said Boone’s demeanor and personality made him an instant hit.

“He’s very dramatic with his excitement,” Travis said. “He’ll move his whole body and his whole tail, and you can just tell that he is a very good dog to have around, and just fits into our family so well.”

The day Travis went to the shelter to help foster a dog landed on the one-month anniversary of her grandfather’s death, she said.

“It was a hard day, but we got so blessed to have Boone,” she said. “We feel like it was a gift from God, and a gift from our grandpa too.”

Travis wasn’t alone in adopting the animal she fostered because of the emergency. According to staff at the shelter, at least six animals that were fostered because of the flooding eventually got adopted.

As someone who had experience working with animal shelters in the Midwest, Rohr, a Lynnwood resident, felt they could effectively take care of a cat with issues some prospective pet owners would shy away from.

They went to the shelter on Dec. 10 with their partner, Naoki Doi, to pick up a cat. Rohr and Doi use they/them pronouns. When the two arrived, they were greeted with a black cat that had been struggling with behavioral issues in the shelter, about one and a half years old, named Lorax. Doi and Rohr eventually renamed her October.

On the way back after picking up October, Rohr and Doi stopped at a Fred Meyer to stock up on food in case the flooding got worse. Rohr, sitting in the car with October, took the chance to try and bond with the animal. They slowly reached out a hand to the front of the enclosure, and the cat came right up to start sniffing at them. Rohr opened the carrier to reach their hand inside, and October began to push into their hand, starting to purr.

The cat ended up being a “sweetheart,” Rohr said.

The two brought October home. For a few hours, she kept to herself in a hiding place under Rohr’s bed. Eventually, she came out to greet the two people who had fostered her.

Doi’s emotional support cat had died a year prior. The loss had been hard on them, they said, but they had been ready to get another cat. As October started to interact with them for the first time, Rohr said Doi’s demeanor softened. Their body relaxed.

That’s when the two knew the cat would not be going back to the shelter. Rohr called it a “miracle” of being in the right place, in the right time with the right circumstances.

Maybe the clouds that brought the rain and flooding to Snohomish County had something of a silver lining for them, they wrote to The Daily Herald in an email.

“We were just looking to help the shelter out,” Rohr said. “But it really turned into this beautiful opportunity to fill a space in our family.”

Will Geschke: 425-339-3443; william.geschke@heraldnet.com; X: @willgeschke.

To volunteer or foster at the Everett Animal Shelter, visit everettwa.gov/178/Volunteering-Fostering.