How Texas A&M’s veterinary emergency team gets disaster-ready

Texas A&M’s Veterinary Emergency Team offers a useful look at what modern veterinary disaster response actually requires: not just clinicians willing to help, but a standing system that can prepare, mobilize, and operate in the field under emergency command structures. In the dvm360 account and related Texas A&M materials, the team’s work spans emergency care for companion animals and livestock, medical support for FEMA urban search-and-rescue canines, and practical guidance for clinics and communities trying to prepare before the next crisis. (vetmed.tamu.edu)

That model has been developing for years. Texas A&M says the VET was established in 2010, following earlier disaster-response work at the veterinary school, and has since deployed across Texas and beyond, including responses tied to Hurricane Harvey, Hurricane Ian, East Texas flooding, and the 2024 Texas Panhandle wildfires. The program now sits at the intersection of service, teaching, and research, which helps explain why it’s often cited as the most deployed veterinary medical emergency team in the country. (vetmed.tamu.edu)

Operationally, the team deploys when requested by Texas A&M Task Force 1 or county jurisdictions, bringing mobile veterinary capability into settings where infrastructure may be damaged or nonexistent. Texas A&M describes its mission as supporting urban search-and-rescue teams and resident animals affected by natural or manmade disasters. In practice, that means the work can range from treating burns and trauma in displaced animals to monitoring and stabilizing working dogs in active search zones, as well as helping with sheltering, decontamination, and zoonotic disease surveillance. (vetmed.tamu.edu)

Zoran’s comments from the team’s 2024 Smokehouse Creek wildfire deployment help show how variable those missions can be. In that response, she described a widely dispersed burn area across ranchland, with patients including cattle, horses, donkeys, and relatively fewer dogs and cats than in more residential fires. She also noted that field realities can force hard triage decisions, including euthanasia in remote locations, and that much of disaster medicine is basic stabilization performed under austere conditions rather than full-service referral care. (dvm360.com)

The educational side is also a major part of the story. Texas A&M says its VET rotation is the only required fourth-year veterinary emergency response rotation in the nation, and students don’t just rehearse clinical scenarios. They conduct county risk assessments, work with local leaders on disaster plans, and, when timing aligns, may deploy with the team during real incidents. That structure gives future veterinarians exposure to incident command, logistics, field triage, and interagency coordination, all of which are hard to teach in a conventional hospital setting. (vetmed.tamu.edu)

Industry and institutional reaction has increasingly framed this as a capacity issue, not just a Texas story. In May 2024, Texas A&M publicly backed the idea of a national network of veterinary emergency teams, with Zoran arguing that more regional units could shorten response times and better support both affected animals and the working dogs that help locate disaster victims. That argument aligns with the team’s broader research and outreach work, including published guidance on companion-animal decontamination and downloadable emergency planning materials for veterinary practices. (vetmed.tamu.edu)

Why it matters: For veterinary professionals, the biggest takeaway is that disaster readiness is becoming part of core practice infrastructure, not a niche interest. Clinics may never deploy into a wildfire or flood zone, but they can still be called on to stabilize evacuees’ animals, support local shelters, maintain continuity of care during outages, or help pet parents navigate evacuation and reunification. Texas A&M’s model underscores that preparedness depends on staffing plans, communications trees, supply lists, transport pathways, and team members having personal preparedness plans of their own. (vetmed.tamu.edu)

What to watch: The next phase to watch is whether Texas A&M’s VET model remains primarily a high-performing academic program or becomes a template for broader regional replication. With disasters increasing in frequency and intensity, the pressure will be on veterinary schools, state agencies, and professional groups to decide whether they want ad hoc volunteerism, or a more formal veterinary emergency-response backbone. (vetmed.tamu.edu)