A Tennessee family was recently reunited with their two dogs who had gone missing during Hurricane Helene, owing to the goodwill of Tennessee Department of Transportation (TDOT) employees.
Richard McNabb and a coworker saw two dogs—a mama and her puppy—on a critically damaged piece of I-40 in Cooke County, about a week after flooding washed away dozens of highways in the state’s east.
“We saw these dogs; the little pup was barking and yapping like crazy, and the mom was over in a ditch drinking water,” McNabb reported to WATE.com. “So I picked up the pup, handed him to Willis, and went over to chat with the mama dog for a minute,” McNabb said. She allowed me to pick her up, and together we loaded her into the truck.
Based on the information on their tags, Richard was able to return the dogs to Jason Ford and his family in Grassy Fork, located many miles east of their original location.
TDOT posted a video of the rescue and subsequent reunion to social media.
“Disaster recovery is tough work,” the caption reads. “Now and then, there are bright moments.”
“Mama and the little puppy were gone and the other four puppies were all at home so we began searching for them trying to figure out where they went,” Ford told WATE. “That went on for about a week before Richard called us and let us know that he had found them, so we were really glad about that.”
Ford stated that both dogs are glad to be home and doing well.
