Texas Zoo: A fight against Hurricane Harvey

In 48 hours, Tropical Storm Harvey turned into a major category 4 hurricane. As it barreled its way across the Gulf of Mexico—gaining strength with every mile—communities living along the Texas coast braced themselves for the unpredictable and unprecedented.

The winds came first. Rustling through the trees and rattling the chain link fence surrounding the small Texas Zoo — a mere whisper compared to the roar that soon followed. With rain coming down like bullets and wind gusts delivering sporadic punches, the normally sleepy town of Victoria, Texas was in a battle against nature.

Hurricane Harvey’s destructive path across the Texas coastline knocked down power lines, ripped roofs off houses, and pulled trees up by the roots. In just a few hours of making landfall, the record-setting storm destroyed thousands of standing structures and went on to dump 33 trillion gallons of water as it lingered over the south.

Inside the Texas Zoo alone, water levels surged over five feet and trees punctured the tops of buildings, not giving a care to who — or what — was inside. Sitting nearly 500 feet away from the Guadalupe River, the entire park is a floodplain. Anytime it rains, the river swells, escapes its banks and threatens the zoo. Only this time it wasn’t just rain; it was the storm surge as well.

Jesse Salinas, one of the zookeepers, volunteered to stay during the hurricane. Alongside another zookeeper, the animal curator and his wife, they watched the water creep inland for two days after the hurricane’s initial hit.

With a water pump operating in the front and another one going in the back, they slowly rerouted the water trickling in. Stories of past floods flashed through Salinas’ mind. He had no idea what to expect, but knew it would be bad. That’s when the water levels really started to rise. Pushing over the berm in the back, the water spilled into the zoo like rushing rapids.

“After that, we still tried to stay on the pumps, but the tables the pumps were on started floating,” Salinas said. “[They] just couldn’t keep up with the water that was coming in.”

Eventually giving up on the pumps, Salinas and the others focused on making their rounds to check on the animals. At one point, walking through chest-high water.

“My love for animals just took over right there,” he said. “We had to do what we could do. Try to save as many animals we could.”

Aside from swimming-pool-depth waters, Salinas said it was just another normal day on the job caring for the 250 animals inside the zoo. Some of the bigger mammals, like the lions and baby bears, have concrete bedrooms and high areas inside where they could get away from the rising water.

But, as night began to fall again and with each building holding at least three feet of standing water inside, the group of volunteers made their last rounds. After leading two sheep and a baby goat to dry land in the deer yard, which houses petting zoo animals, Salinas started wading back to his bed for the night — the roof of their office building. He wasn’t alone.

“The goat — I don’t know if he was stupid or smart enough — but he actually followed us all the way to the building, swimming through the water, he followed us all the way there,” Salinas said.

With no choice but to carry him up to the roof, Salinas tucked the kid underneath his arm and climbed the ladder. Making it to the top, with only a few scares along the way, the exhausted volunteers and baby goat tried to get some sleep.

Program manager, Nathan Jones, arrived the next day by boat. He’d made one distress call right after the storm and now six zoos were on their way to help, including the Austin Zoo. The water had receded and calmed during the night, allowing the Fort Worth Zoo to take their boats into the facilities.

“They didn’t know us or our facility — it gives me goosebumps thinking about it — they just love animals, they came in droves,” Jones said. “The zoos and aquariums that came to help literally floated in carriers out from a boat out front.”

When the water receded enough, the Austin Zoo came in and helped take down the lions, a tiger and a few primates. The Dallas Zoo took the jaguars. The Snake Farm took reptiles from the flooded building. The San Antonio and Brownsville Zoos took various other smaller animals like the coatis, a member of the raccoon family.

Together the zoos and volunteers worked on getting the animals into crates, onto the boats and then to the community center, a one-night shelter before they head to yet another temporary home at the other zoos.

Overall, they only lost a few animals: a turkey, hawk, some turtles and a sheep. Salinas believes the death toll would have been higher had they not stayed. Now, three months after the hurricane and one month after the zoo’s reopening, the wounds are still visible.

Everyday for work, Jones sits inside a gutted building. Black plastic tarps cover the exposed bones of the building from the outside. Inside, Jones decorated for the holidays hoping the red plastic tablecloths and golden stars he hung up hide the scars and spread just a bit of cheer.

Hopes of rebuilding are high, even when the process is slow. With more than $680,000 in damage to the zoo, the nonprofit whose annual budget is a sixth of that,

is relying more than ever on the generosity of others. Their GoFundMe is currently just over $21,000.

Taking it one day at a time, every staff member is trying to stay positive in the midst of this tragedy, evident by the smiles on their faces.

“I think good things are coming from it,” Jones said smiling. “It’s gonna be a renaissance for the zoo. It has the potential for us to start fresh. As much as it can, it’s starting to feel like the zoo again.”