Think you’re prepared for the next winter storm that takes out the power and sends you fleeing for warmth and safety?

What about your pets?

The Upper Valley Humane Society in Enfield is designing a disaster plan to protect companion animals during any natural disaster.

Floods, ice storms, blizzards, even a tropical storm have all hit New Hampshire in recent years, and Deborah Turcott, the shelter’s executive director, said staff members want to be ready to help when the next one comes.

Hurricane Katrina was a wake-up call for disaster planners, Turcott said.

“We clearly learned in Katrina that there were people who would not protect themselves … because of the risk to their pets,” she said.

A 2006 study by Fritz Institute and Harris Interactive found that 19 percent of those who didn’t evacuate before Hurricane Katrina stayed because they didn’t want to leave their pets behind.

And a post-Katrina poll by Zogby International in 2005 found that six in 10 pet owners would refuse an order to evacuate if they couldn’t take their animals with them.

“It’s a reality that we have to face in the animal welfare industry,” Turcott said. “There is a bond between animal and human welfare that I think was demonstrated in Katrina far more than we have ever seen in my lifetime.”

Last year, UVHS successfully applied for an AmeriCorps VISTA volunteer to create a disaster emergency plan for companion animals.

She arrived the week Tropical Storm Irene blew into New England.

Deerfield native Jennifer Perry, 23, majored in diplomacy and international relations at Seton Hall University before joining AmeriCorps. An animal lover, she got interested in disaster planning her senior year, and the UVHS position was a perfect fit.

“I managed to combine two things I love,” she said.

New Hampshire communities tend to be close-knit, Perry said, and most people don’t end up at a shelter when there’s a natural disaster. “They have friends, they have family, they have neighbors that are willing to open up their homes to them,” she said.

Her job is to make sure there’s also a safe place for their pets if people do have to leave home.

Turcott said the plan will encompass a variety of scenarios — a “surge” of animals that need emergency sheltering at UVHS, for instance, or a storm that destroys the Enfield shelter, requiring relocation of its own animals.

During last winter’s ice storm, UVHS lost power for nearly four days.

But Turcott said the shelter will be ready for the next one: It recently installed a 100-kilowatt generator and has plenty of room to take in additional animals if other shelters lose power.

Taking care of companion animals is an increasingly important part of disaster planning, according to Joanne Bourbeau, northeast regional director for the Humane Society of the United States.

She noted that after Hurricane Katrina, Congress passed the PETS (Pets Evacuation and Transportation Standards) Act of 2006, requiring state and local emergency preparedness plans to include the needs of individuals with pets and service animals.

Bourbeau chairs the New Hampshire Disaster Animal Response Team (DART), a nonprofit organization that works at all levels of government to make sure planning is in place for responding to animal needs during natural disasters.

She noted the state veterinarian is now on duty at the emergency operations center during any disaster.

Bourbeau said the old message from first responders was “just leave your pets in the bathroom with plenty of food and water and they’ll be fine.”

But that discouraged evacuations, she said: “Pet owners who think of their pets as family think, ‘If they’ll be fine, so will I.’”

Now, post-Katrina, Bourbeau said, disaster experts understand that “planning for animals and planning for people are not separate things.”

And UVHS plans to have volunteers available at emergency shelters so if pets are not allowed, they can be taken to the animal shelter until their owners can reclaim them.

In addition to state and local planning, Bourbeau said, it’s critical for families to have their own emergency plans for their pets.

“The primary message is really making sure that you’re preparing yourselves first so that nobody has to go in and help you after the fact,” she said. “We don’t want to have to go in and rescue animals — or rescue people who are trying to rescue their animals.”

For more information on emergency planning for animals, go to humanesociety.org or agriculture.nh.gov/divisions/animal_industry/AnimalsinDisaster.htm.