Three Hawaiian Humane Society volunteers were unprepared for the sheer volume of animals displaced by Hurricane Katrina when they signed up to pitch in.

Nor were they prepared for the size of the camp where the animals — dogs, cats, hamsters, ferrets, bunnies, horses, goats, sheep and a boa constrictor — were being cared for in Louisiana during their weeklong volunteer stint. Every day, 300 to 500 more animals would come to get cleaned up, fed and cared for. Eventually about 20 a day would be reclaimed by their owners, but the vast majority were shipped out to other shelters until the owners could claim them.

Cages and stalls lined rows upon rows of airplane hangar-like barns where Johnny Diaz, Cindy Kantor and Lisa Okamura took care of the lost animals.

In all, the Lamar-Dixon temporary shelter in Gonzales, La., handled about 3,500 animals that required feeding, watering and bathing. In three shifts of at least 45 volunteers each from humane societies from Hawai'i, Colorado, Minnesota, Ohio and California, volunteers worked round-the-clock helping to care for these victims of the hurricane.

This is the first time that the Hawaiian Humane Society lent its expertise to help in another part of the country, said Mary Tashiro, Hawaiian Humane Society animal care manager.

The trio volunteered to help out on Sept. 13 in response to a plea from the Humane Society of the United States. They headed home Thursday.

From the day they arrived in Louisiana until the day they left the area, they and other volunteers — people from other animal organizations or individuals who cared about animals — worked in sweltering weather caring for the lost or abandoned animals. Diaz, Kantor and Okamura left Louisiana before Hurricane Rita made landfall and many of the animals were relocated to other facilities while the storm was approaching.

Kantor, 45, who has worked at the Hawaiian Humane Society for 18 years, said of the animals affected by Hurricane Katrina: "They needed help. I couldn't have conceived of saying no."

Okamura, who has worked with the Hawaiian Humane Society for 20 years, said she has never participated in a rescue of such magnitude before.

"I didn't expect what I saw," said the 46-year-old Okamura. "It was worse than the worst I had imagined. There was chaos and the area was huge. It took us 10 minutes to walk from one end of a barn to another."

The barns were not air-conditioned. At least 500 animals were housed in each of the six in use, Okamura said.

There were no cell phones or shortwave radios.

There wasn't even a good place to sleep.

For the first three nights, the volunteers had to find their own sleeping accommodations. Diaz took his pillow and sleeping bag to the back of a horse trailer, Okamura used the back of the rental van, and Kantor slept on the back seat of a car.

Okamura said of their caregiving mission: "There were just so many animals in each stall that it all became a blur. It was so hard to see the old and sick animals. It was overwhelming."

Diaz, 21, said: "There wasn't enough time to get to know any one animal. But it was an experience."

Tashiro said the local society is working on getting another crew together to go and help at the animal facility in Louisiana.

"There's just no end in sight," Kantor said. "They need a ton of help."

Reach Suzanne Roig at sroig@honoluluadvertiser.com.