June 30, 2007 : 12:00 AM

Texas community was prepared to evacuate the zoo having learned from past flooding.

Posted: June 19, 2007 06:27 PM

KTEN Local News

Gainesville residents weren't the only ones displaced by the flooding Monday. More than one hundred animals at the Frank Buck Zoo were evacuated as the flood waters inched higher over their homes. KTEN's Andrea Kurys reports. The last time a big flood threatened the zoo, it was 1981. With no evacuation plan in place, dozens of animals drowned. This time though, zoo officials were prepared.

After the flood in '81, a levee between the zoo and a nearby creek was put into place. It was the levee yesterday that bought zoo officials precious time.
The staff couldn't get to the animals until the rain began to slow. By the time a full-scale evacuation began, offers of assistance from a nearby ranch and vet clinic helped speed things along.

Three weeks ago, the animals and the staff did an evacuation during a heavy rainstorm, even though there was no water inside the zoo. That seemed to have payed off yesterday...it took just two hours to get everyone out safely. Susan Kleven, the zoo director said, "The animals actually seemed to have an idea of what was going on. Some of the animals we could just hold crates up to and even though we do not crate or handle them on a daily basis, they walked right into crates." Most of the animals were taken out of the flood plain to higher ground within city limits. A few of the larger animals stayed on site where the ground stayed dry.

Kleven says they plan to bring all of the animals back Thursday or Friday. Officials from the Dallas zoo have offered to help.
Andrea Kurys, KTEN News.