Florida Animals Evacuated, Too

Millions of Floridians evacuated to escape Milton, which was set to smash into West Florida on Wednesday with tremendous force.Many animals were relocated, too.In Clewiston, Fla., a small town about 80 miles northwest of Fort Lauderdale, the police helped to load up dozens of stray dogs in the city’s care — many of them picked up by residents in the days before the storm.“They were afraid they’d drown or be killed,” said the Clewiston Chief of Police, Tom Lewis.Crackers, Cheeto, Watson and around 40 other Clewiston dogs departed — first for a shelter in West Palm Beach, Fla.From there, 10 dogs boarded a plane for Panama City Beach, in the North of Florida, and from there, they continued their journey to the Humane Society of North Texas.Chief Lewis said it was good that they had been relocated, since the town was hit by tornadoes.

But he wondered what would happen to them next.“It’s quite a lot of travel for those dogs,” said Kelsey Otocki, a spokeswoman for the West Palm Beach shelter, Peggy Adams Animal Rescue League, which coordinated the dogs’ evacuation.Other animals who were moved this week include two manatees, which were sent inland to ZooTampa from an aquarium in Clearwater that sits right on the water.(ZooTampa’s animals are safe, a spokeswoman said, though the facility doesn’t have power and is running emergency generators to power aquatic habitats, a spokeswoman said).Rare corals moved from harm’s way are expected to be back at Florida Aquarium’s conservation campus by early next week, according to Roger Germann, the aquarium’s president and CEO.

Atlantic pillar and Atlantic elkhorn coral were carefully packed up and sent by truck to Georgia, and to safer locations in South Florida, Mr.Germann said.He and his team had decided to ship out the corals — including Atlantic pillar and Atlantic elkhorn — because some are virtually extinct in the wild, he said.

“We are holding them almost as a Noah’s Ark.”A rescued sea...