30 Flamingos Rode Out Hurricane Isaias in a Zoo Bathroom; Video Nears 2 Million Views

30 Flamingos Rode Out the Hurricane in a Bathroom

On the night Hurricane Isaias slammed into Florida, the biggest stars at ZooWorld in Panama City Beach weren't the winds — they were 30 flamingos. Keepers herded the entire flock into a restroom to ride out the storm, and the video the zoo posted to Facebook has been viewed nearly 2 million times, making the birds the hurricane's most famous "evacuees."

A Bathroom Makes a Surprisingly Good Fortress

Why a restroom? The flamingos' normal sleeping enclosure couldn't stand up to the ferocious winds, while the bathroom's block walls served as something of a fortress. Better yet, flamingos huddle in restrooms during severe storms because they need open space and water to prevent stress and dehydration — and the bathroom had both. The tight quarters actually calmed the flock down, chief operating officer Erika Newell said, "much like a snug garment might calm a dog."

Meet the Stars: Mr. Sparklepants, Age 10

The "bathroom flock" had its celebrities: Mr. Sparklepants, 10, the largest and most dominant of the group; and Scuttle and Mango Shrimproll, both 3, raised by a ZooWorld zookeeper since they were eggs. Before Isaias made landfall on October 9, senior zookeeper Kylie Appleton filmed the birds honking and bumbling between the sink and the stalls, shedding pink feathers onto a grippy floor mat — then the team boarded up the door. Newell spent that night in an apartment on the grounds, waking every hour as the storm lashed the Gulf Coast to check on all the animals.

Not Just Flamingos: Snakes in Trash Cans, Goats in the Rabbit Exhibit

The flamingos were only part of the "hurricane lockdown" plan: the big snakes were coiled into trash cans, the male billy goats were holed up in the rabbit exhibit, and the bat-eared foxes got extra bedding tucked into crates. "Hurricane lockdown looks a bit different for every animal," the zoo wrote on Facebook. "Some prefer the warm comfort of a hay bed, some need a little more space and a little more water." All of the animals survived; crews are now cleaning up downed limbs.

An Echo of 1992: Andrew's Flamingos Did the Same Thing

The scene has a historical echo: when Category 5 Hurricane Andrew hit in 1992, the flamingos at Zoo Miami (then called Miami Metrozoo) also rode out the storm in a bathroom. More than three decades later, the same trick worked again for Isaias.

Zoo Stayed Closed Sunday for Cleanup

ZooWorld closed Friday and Saturday, and stayed closed Sunday amid rolling power outages and ongoing cleanup. Isaias came ashore as a Category 2 hurricane near Destin, Florida, on October 9 before tracking north, leaving outages, floods, and tornadoes in its wake — but in Panama City Beach, what people may remember is 30 pink birds squeezing into a bathroom for the night and strutting out the next morning like nothing happened.