Woman takes in 97 stray dogs to save them from hurricane in the Bahamas

"My heart is so broken for the ones without a place to hide."

A woman has taken in 97 stray dogs to save them from a hurricane in the Bahamas. Chella Phillips, who runs a rescue shelter in the capital of Nassau, took in the dogs ahead of Hurricane Dorian to ensure that they had a safe place to stay when the weather turned. Some of the dogs were sick while others were simply afraid of the hurricane. Phillips said on Facebook that she has had to barricade the shelter to keep herself and the dogs safe. She is keeping 79 of the strays in her master bedroom. "It has been insane since last night, poop and piss non stop but at least they are respecting my bed and nobody has dared to jump in," she said. "We have barricaded the refuge and nobody is outside, the music is playing in all directions of the house and the AC is blowing for them. "We may not get hit as hard as other islands and the saddest part is that after the hurricane leaves the Bahamas, some islands will take a long time to recover. Each island has abundance of homeless dogs, my heart is so broken for the ones without a place to hide." The areas worse affected by the hurricane are Abaco Islands and Grand Bahama, with Nassau suffering severe flooding and power outages. Phillips said yesterday that she hopes the dogs on the worse affected islands are being cared for. She said that the refuge experienced bad flooding and that she feels like she is "fighting a losing battle" with the storm. A fundraiser set up to care for the dogs has already reached $54,000.