Hi all,

I hope this blog finds you all safe and dry! What would a big storm be without a rescue blog....

This is the sky as I came into the Aquarium's Animal Care Center (ACC) this morning. Just after this photo, the clouds dumped their entire holdings on me!


The Aquarium has an extensive storm protocol to maintain the highest level of care for all the animals in our collection and in the Rescue Department. Below you can see two of my favorite components of our emergency preparations.

A powerful generator stands plugged in and ready to power all our life support systems in our ACC. So far we have not lost power at the ACC, we will switch to power from this generator if we do.


The photo below shows a flood gate in place in front of the doors into our necropsy laboratory. Doesn't look like the storm will put these flood gates to use...That's fine with me!


Below are photos of our storm team. Each department has designated storm staff, these are the lucky folks for Hurricane Irene.

Katie Kodzis, from our Animal Health Department, prepares to help me administer medications to the loggerhead.


Matt Cotter, from our Facilities Department, makes rounds of our life support systems. Matt is responsible for operating all our life support systems at the ACC.


Below Jordon Depenbrock, from our Fishes Department, was on hand to feed and care for all the fishes in the ACC. At the time of this photo I found him over in work area - Maybe he's building an ark...If so I think he's gonna need more wood...


A few last photos of my hurricane day in the ACC here in Quincy, MA. The photo in the left shows some turtle boxes getting a "natural rinse" with Irene's rain water...now that's recycling! Photo on the right shows how nice and quiet it is in the ACC despite the weather outside.


Stay safe everyone!

-Connie