Woman Saves Cats And Dogs From Hurricane Florence, Gets Charged With Crime

Tammie Hedges, a North Carolina resident with a heart as big as the ocean, offered to help low-income and elderly people who could not afford to board their pets safely or take them with them when evacuating Hurricane Florence.

My former colleague at the Washington Examiner, Philip Wegmann, reports that Hedges “converted a warehouse into an impromptu shelter to care for 17 cats and 10 dogs around the clock.”

After the hurricane was gone, Wayne County Animal Services manager Frank Sauls told Hedges she needed to stop caring for the animals because she hadn’t registered the warehouse as a shelter.

“You can voluntarily hand over the animals or I can go get a warrant,” Hedges said Sauls told her, in an interview with her local CBS affiliate.

Hedges gave up the animals but may still face charges — although it is unclear at this time what those charges may be.

Sauls told the Goldsboro News-Argus, “If we didn’t feel like anything was being done wrong, we would not have taken [the animals],” and that it was now a matter “for the courts to decide.”

Hedges said that she wouldn’t have done anything differently.

“We’re not just gonna let the animals suffer and die and drown,” she said.

As Wegmann concludes, “If the county presses charges against Hedges over any licensing or registration issue, they might as well just start kicking puppies while they’re at it.”