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Hurricane Irma causes damage at Tri-County Animal Rescue in Boca Raton

Posted at 6:42 PM, Sep 21, 2017
and last updated 2017-09-21 18:42:24-04

Meet Hoot, he's one of many dogs living at the Tri-County Animal Rescue in Boca Raton. He likes to run, but his running space is limited after Hurricane Irma.

Trees now block the animal walkways. A large tree fell on top of the building where animals get around-the-clock medical attention.

 "And then I got that fateful call during the night at two o'clock in the morning that the building one of our buildings, the sanctuary house the roof had collapsed inside of it," said Allen Trowbridge, the organization's operations manager,
 
Once the roof caved in, staff members had to pack up the animals during the storm and move them to the main house.

Now it's tight quarters in the main building because the sick animals have to be quarantined.
 
The organization is on a mission to raise funds to replace the damaged building.

Sharon DiPietro the chairman, is leading the cause. "We are going to put a modular unit in its place. It's going to to be a pre-fabricated home, not a trailer, but a home that sits on a foundation."

She hopes it happens soon."We are trying to move with expediency to get the modular unit in place so that we can reclaim our sanctuary house get the needy animals back here where they need to belong and get the medical attention that they need." And leave the larger building for the healthy animals that are ready for adoption.

The organization says the 50 animals that were in the damaged building were not hurt.