WATERLOO - When disasters strike, a Waterloo resident helps pick up the pieces for some of the smallest and furriest victims.

Bruce Earnest, a Covenant Ambulance emergency medical technician and part-time animal control officer, volunteers his time with the Humane Society of the United States' Disaster Response Team.

His travels have taken him to flooding in Davenport, wildfires in Arizona and tornadoes in Missouri where he tracks pets that have become separated from their owners.

He recently returned from trips to New Orleans and Mississippi following Hurricane Katrina, and the stints gained him notoriety in the Chicago Tribune and on the Animal Planet cable television show.

"Katrina was a disaster that no one has really seen before," said Earnest, 33 and a West High School graduate.

Normally, the animal roundup that follows a disaster takes one or two weeks. Since Katrina, Earnest has made two two-week tours in New Orleans and one in the Gulfport, Miss., area.

He's scheduled to return to New Orleans in January to help with the efforts there.

Earnest uses his vacation time for the trips - he said Covenant is understanding about his volunteer work - and the Humane Society pays for his travel and accommodations, which sometimes don't amount to much.

In New Orleans, Earnest and his disaster team comrades spent the stifling hot nights in tents in an equestrian center's parking lot. To stay cool, he'd sleep in boxer shorts with a bottle of water next to him to keep hydrated.

"It was hot and tiring. Most of the days were 100 plus degrees with the heat index," he said.

They'd get up at about 5:30 or 6 a.m. and make the trip into the city where they went door-to-door removing stranded dogs and cats from vacant homes.

The team would get requests from friends and neighbors of the missing residents to remove pets from certain addresses. But they didn't need much help locating displaced animals. There were strays every time they turned around.

Earnest even helped remove 40 animals from the Superdome after people left the facility that had been used as a temporary shelter. During the removal operation, one of the dogs gave birth to puppies, he said.

During the rescues from homes, the team often had to break in through a window or door. Then they had to search through the debris for the pets.

In homes that had been flooded, the dogs and cats usually hid in high places and stayed there after the water receded. Animals trapped on roofs was a common sight, and it wasn't unusual to find large dogs nesting on high closet shelves.

Earnest said the majority of the animals were scared, but they instantly took to their rescuers. Even after a week or two without food, the pets were more starved for attention.

"They just wanted the human bond," Earnest said.

The rescued animals were taken back to the equestrian center where veterinarians tended to them and volunteers washed them.

Organizers took their photos and placed the information on a Web site where owners could claim them. Those not immediately reunited were sent to Humane Society shelters across the country where they stayed during further reunion efforts or, failing that, adoption.

Rescue workers tried to find clues in the homes as to how the owners might be found. Cell phone bills were usually helpful, Earnest said.

Earnest began volunteering with the local animal shelter in his youth after his family moved to Waterloo from Illinois.

He joined the rescue team about five years after he inquired about ways he could use his EMT and animal control background while regional Humane Society officials were visiting Waterloo.

Contact Jeff Reinitz at (319) 291-1578 or jeff.reinitz@wcfcourier.com.