"We tried every side road. We were blocked by the sheriff. I begged, I pleaded, I would have offered them money, I even showed them the pictures, but there was no way.
"My neighborhood is perfectly dry, but they won't let anybody through. The sheriff told me 'You should have grabbed him when you had the chance,'" she said, sobbing.
"They turned me away at gunpoint. They told me not today, not tomorrow, not for weeks."
Whitlock, manager of Faulkner House Books, which has the world's biggest collection of first edition books by William Faulkner, said she had left enough food for Carmine to survive about a week.
"But it's the water I'm concerned about. I didn't leave the toilet seat up because they warned us the sewers could overflow due to the storm. I bolted all the windows. I put special hurricane shutters on.
"He is my baby. He's bred like some dogs who are capable to bond with humans intensely."
Emergency officials say the pet toll could be as bad as the human one.
