Storms, floods, fires, disease outbreaks and terrorist attacks are frightening realities that people all over the world face today, and when disaster strikes, people are often unprepared to care for themselves, let alone their animals. Having an emergency disaster plan can benefit everyone in the family, including the family pets.

Allison Fedash, a fourth-year veterinary student at the University of Illinois College of Veterinary Medicine and volunteer for the animal rescue group Noah’s Wish, explains that there’s never a better time to prepare for a disaster than now.

She says, “The problem is, people don’t plan, and why should they if they don’t think anything bad is going to happen?”

As a volunteer for Noah’s Wish, Fedash has helped rescue animals from flood, storm, and fire-wrought areas. Noah’s Wish, which is more than 2,000 volunteers strong, works with organizations such as the Red Cross to help locate and rescue pets and farm animals. Noah’s Wish sent volunteers to the sites of the south Asian tsunami, the World Trade Center disaster, and hurricane Katrina