The owner of the doggy day care where 10 dogs drowned on Monday said the Northeast D.C. facility will never reopen after devastating floodwaters ripped through the business.
Jacob Hensley, the owner of District Dogs, was grief-stricken when he spoke to News4 Tuesday about the flash flood.
"We're all in this business because we love dogs. We love dogs so much. This is not what we want to do," Hensley said through tears.
Video shows floodwaters rapidly rising outside of District Dogs. Waist-high waters rose to 6 feet before crashing through the plate-glass windows of the doggy day care in a matter of minutes.
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"Within about 10 minutes, the walls were breached. About 5, 6 feet worth of water inside. The stories that I've been told of my employees inside, they were climbing on shelves trying to survive. We moved the dogs to the highest ground possible," Hensley said.
Firefighters had to break through drywall to let water out of the building.
"My entire team at District Dogs in Northeast are heroes. What they went through is nothing anyone should have to go through in their life," Hensley said.
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Employees were able to save most of the more than 40 dogs that were at the day care. Firefighters could be seen helping carry them out to their owners who were anxiously waiting outside soon after the flood.
Hensley said losing 10 dogs in the flood was a shock.
"It was completely heartbreaking to make these phone calls and talk to these owners. This is not why we’re in business. It's not anything that we should expect to do," Hensley said.
Pet owners said they were told the dogs were moved to an elevated area as the building flooded.
One woman who lost a dog in the flood told News4's sister station Telemundo44 she is considering legal action against the day care.
"She was my little thing, she was my baby… He's got to accept consequences for not having a safe space for the dogs," she said in Spanish to T44. "I paid $700 a month for them to take care of her."
Pet owner Caroline Kruk said she rushed to District Dogs after seeing a video of her dog, Emmy, being rescued.
“[I felt] just relief, pure relief when I saw her little head come out over the barrier, just knowing that she’s OK,” Kruk said.
Although she is grateful her pet is OK, she said her heart breaks for the other pet owners who weren't so lucky.
The same location experienced significant flooding in August last year, but no people or dogs were hurt. Hensley raised concerns about the issue to D.C. leaders to do something about the flood-prone area.
"I was told last year, all the D.C. officials … [it was] safe. Everything was working, going to be finished. We were assured that it was a safe place to open for business," Hensley said.
DC Water said a tunnel that should help with flooding in the area is expected to open in two months.
Four cars were trapped in the overpass adjacent to District Dogs and first responders rescued the drivers.
Hensley says the District Dogs on Rhode Island Ave. will never open again after the flood, but he will explore opening a different location to serve the Northeast community in the future.
"The community here has been super supportive. They love us, they want us back, and I think District Dogs Northeast will come back at another facility, in a better facility, in a safer facility, and we're going to come back stronger. Yeah, we'll be back," he said.
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