Trucker driving school bus rescues 64 dogs, cats ahead of Hurricane Florence

GREENBACK, Tenn. — A Tennessee truck driver is being hailed as a hero after he rescued 64 shelter dogs and cats ahead of Hurricane Florence.

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According to the Greenvale News, Tony Alsup, 51, from Greenback, Tennessee, drove a school bus to South Carolina last week as the deadly storm strengthened in the Atlantic. Once there, he stopped in Orangeburg, Georgetown, Dillon and North Myrtle Beach, picking up 53 dogs and 11 cats from area animal shelters.

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"It's so easy for people to adopt the small pets and the cuties and the cuddly," Alsup, of Tony's Emergency Animal Rescue and Shelter, told the Greenvale News. "We take on the ones that deserve a chance even though they are big and a little ugly. But I love big dogs, and we find places for them."

He drove them to a shelter in Foley, Alabama, which will distribute the animals to other shelters across the nation, the newspaper reported.

Saint Frances Animal Center in Georgetown praised Alsup in a Facebook post Tuesday.

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"It's all true," the post said of Alsup, who also has saved animals from hurricane-hit Puerto Rico, Texas and Florida. "Tony swooped in at 4 a.m. Wednesday morning to pick up our 'leftovers' – the dogs with blocky heads, the ones with heartworm. The ones no one else will ever take. And he got them to safety. Not the most conventional evacuation, but surely the one with the most heart."

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