Photos by MATT GENTRY The Roanoke Times

Copper, a greyhound belonging to Leslie Pendleton of Blacksburg, takes the drill calmly.

Veterinarian assistant Lynn Chiplin (left) and veterinarian Marlice Vonck attend to Shelton, a collie who was brought in with a practice scenario case of kennel cough as part of a drill of a state-mandated natural disaster evacuation plan.

Lennox the dog and Izy the kitten wait in the assembly area during the exercise on the Virginia Tech campus.

People gather with their dogs in front of the Alphin-Stuart animal arena on the Virginia Tech campus Friday as part of a mock drill of a state-mandated evacuation plan to provide shelter for refugees and their pets.

BLACKSBURG -- There were aggressive dogs, scared dogs and easygoing dogs Friday at Virginia Tech's Alphin-Stuart Livestock Teaching Arena.

There were cats meowing in crates.

There was even a three-legged Eastern box turtle.

The animals, along with 200 human actors, all portrayed theoretical refugees fleeing a make-believe Category 3 hurricane in Hampton Roads for a "state managed shelter exercise."

Five state agencies, including the Virginia Department of Social Services and the Virginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services, participated.

If a Category 3 or stronger hurricane hits Hampton Roads, up to 750,000 people could be forced to flee low-lying areas such as Norfolk and Portsmouth, said Bob Spieldenner of the Virginia Department of Emergency Management.

Of those, up to 60,000 would need access to public-run shelters.

There are also plans to evacuate Northern Virginia in case of terrorist attack, or other large-scale disasters. To prepare for such events, officials are constantly evaluating potential shelter sites. Large public universities such as Tech are a major part of those plans, Spieldenner said.

The Tech drill was the largest such emergency evacuation exercise conducted in Virginia since officials began working on mass evacuation plans in 2006, Spieldenner said.

He said operating costs for the drill were estimated at about $250,000 -- to be paid through a Homeland Security grant.

The three-day drill at Tech began Wednesday and brought about 150 local, state and federal workers and contractors to Blacksburg for a run-through of the state's mass evacuation plans, which include provisions for companion animals.

"One thing we learned from [Hurricane] Katrina is that people won't leave their pets," Spieldenner said.

As a large land-grant university with major sporting event facilities, Tech is particularly well-suited as pet/owner shelter.

Mel Kegley, a lab manager at the Virginia-Maryland Regional College of Veterinary Medicine, participated as an "actor" in the drill.

She brought a cat and one of her five dogs along. Griffin, a 5-year-old rescued yellow Labrador retriever, climbed onto a table, sprawled out for admirers and waited to be checked in at the mock registration site off Plantation Road.

Once his number was called, Griffin submitted to inspection by a veterinary medicine team, and was then put in a crate in the livestock arena beside dozens of other dogs, also in crates.

Separate rooms were designated for cats. Exotic animals, such as a rescued wild box turtle recovering from surgery to remove a damaged leg, were diverted to an off-site vet clinic.

After the drill concluded, Kegley, like many who participated Friday, talked about the comfort it gives her knowing Virginia includes pets in emergency planning.

Kegley, who used to live in Florida, said when storms threatened, she had two choices: "drive up the coast or board up and stay."

"You don't want to leave pets behind ... they are our family," Kegley said.

Heartbreaking reports of Katrina victims dying because they wouldn't abandon their pets, coupled with images of abandoned animals searching for their owners prompted the Virginia General Assembly in 2007 to pass the Animal Emergency Response Plan.

The plan, signed into law by then-Gov. Tim Kaine, "requires the Department of Emergency Management to develop an emergency response plan to address the needs of animals in an emergency and to assist localities in developing their own emergency response plans."

A similar, but much smaller drill was conducted in June 2009 at the Rockingham County Fairgrounds, where pets and their owners also portrayed refugees. According to the plans, owners of pets sheltered in Rockingham County would be housed at nearby James Madison University.

Officials expect Tech could accommodate up to 2,500 refugees and 4,000 pets.

Other public owner/pet sheltering sites include Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, Virginia State University in Petersburg, James Madison University in Harrisonburg, George Mason University in Fairfax and the Annandale campus of the Northern Virginia Community College.

The designation of Tech as a public shelter site has caused some concern among university officials, who wondered how refugees would affect the learning environment.

Hurricane season coincides with the fall semester, when about 29,000 students attend classes on campus. If Tech were activated as a shelter, some classrooms and learning centers would be filled with refugees.

The drill allowed Tech officials to explore solutions to the problems presented by refugees. For example, the university would be responsible for feeding them at an estimated cost of $2.5 million a month, Tech emergency management director Mike Mulhare said.

Although the university eventually would be reimbursed for those costs, Tech could be forced to dip into its own reserves in the short term, Mulhare said.

Discussing options and devising a funding plan ahead of time are crucial.

But the drill also allowed Tech to "leverage its own emergency preparedness dollars," Mulhare said.

Tech officials use the same incident command system employed for the drill to manage security at every home football game.

But Mulhare said the state drill extrapolated the system to a larger-scale event. It also allowed university officials and police to practice with state and federal agencies.

In the same way that officials are preparing for a major disaster, Spieldenner emphasized the importance of residents developing their own emergency evacuation plans.

Make plans to stay with friends or family in a safe area before an emergency arises, Spieldenner said.

"A public shelter should be a last resort," he said.