Fort Worth Zoo Employees Head Out To Rescue Victoria Zoo Workers
FORT WORTH (CBSDFW.COM) - Employees with the Fort Worth Zoo are on the road, headed to rescue stranded workers at a zoo that has basically been marooned by Hurricane Harvey.
The Texas Zoo is located in Victoria, Texas, about 65 miles north of Rockport, the coastal city where Hurricane Harvey made land on August 25. The zoo was designed and built surrounded by the Guadalupe River and is essentially an island. Heavy rain from Harvey has raised that water to unprecedented levels and has now cut off workers and animals from the rest of the world.
Employees at The Texas Zoo rode out Harvey and say no people or animals were hurt. "There are a number of zoo employees that volunteered to stay there. They rode out the storm with the animals to make sure that they could take care of everything that was on the property," explained Alexis Wilson with the Fort Worth Zoo.
Thursday morning Fort Worth Zoo workers hitched up boats, ATVs, trailers and other equipment and headed south to begin cleanup efforts at The Texas Zoo and help get workers to their homes to assess the damage.
The Texas Zoo is said to have suffered "significant damage" and engineers from North Texas plan to hit the ground running when they arrive. "They're construction... excellent at construction and repair. [They can] go down and do some of those things… anything that is needed immediately we can take care of," said Wilson.
Officials with the Fort Worth Zoo say once the damage in Victoria is assessed they'll decide whether or not to send more people down to help.
On Wednesday workers at The Texas Zoo posted on Facebook that the effects of Harvey had devastated the facility and that they were moving animals to higher ground to escape the rising river waters.
A GoFundMe page has been started to raise funds to rebuild and repair damage from the hurricane.
