RSPCA inspectors have helped a number of stranded horses swim to safety through floodwaters that have inundated 22 towns and cities along with vast swathes of countryside as big as the states of California, Nevada, and Maine combined.
Although animal owners had been warned to move their livestock to higher ground as the storms approached, some were unable to evacuate their animals. After the rains hit,some horses had to swim behind boats to reach safety aided by RSPCA inspectors.
Some property owners that did not have to evacuate have been fostering animals that were in the floods path and had no place else to go.
Authorities say that it is too early to give any estimate of livestock losses in the flood.