Hurricane Central

'Foster Fails' Of Hurricane Season: Pets Evacuated From Shelters Find Forever Homes

At a Glance

Shelters across the Southeast asked their communities to foster animals ahead of tropical weather.
Many dogs and cats were ultimately adopted by their foster families, who they only met thanks to a hurricane.

Sign up for the Morning Brief email newsletter to get weekday updates from The Weather Channel and our meteorologists.

It’s a scene that’s hit social media several times this year: animal shelters asking for volunteers to foster animals ahead of tropical weather, followed by videos of empty kennels after the community turns out in full force to bring dogs and cats into their homes.

Some of those animals never returned to a shelter because they were adopted by their foster families and found their forever homes.

Animal shelters aren't necessarily a safe option for animals during tropical weather, as they face the same threats as all surrounding homes and businesses.

Dorchester Paws in Summerville, South Carolina, is all too familiar with this, as their facility consistently floods during heavy rain.

When forecasts for Hurricane Debby, a tropical storm once it reached the Carolinas, called for up to 2 feet of rain, Dorchester Paws posted a call to action on its social media pages, asking people to foster the animals in the shelter.

Less than 24 hours later, 347 dogs and cats had left Dorchester Paws; 52 of them were later adopted by their foster families.

Hurricane Debby isn’t the only storm that brought dogs and cats to their new homes.

Thomasville Humane in Thomasville, Georgia, made a similar plea ahead of Hurricane Helene as did shelters across Florida before Helene and again before Hurricane Milton.

Many of those shelters had smaller occupancies after the storms passed, too.

'My Dream Dog'

Bubby is one of the dogs that went through the hurricane foster-to-adoptee pipeline in Florida.

His new human, Brittney Woodward, picked him up from a shelter in Miami ahead of Hurricane Milton’s arrival in Florida to foster him during the worst of the storm.

Woodward's original plan was to provide Bubby with a safe place until after the storm, but that plan quickly changed.

“As soon as I brought him home and I saw him in my home, and then I was like, oh my God, like he's just so perfect. And especially just seeing his personality more, I was like, 'This is like my dream dog,'” she says.

Brittney Woodward poses with her "foster fail" Bubby, adopted after Hurricane Milton hit Florida.

Woodward and Bubby are just one "foster fail" out of many from an active and devastating hurricane season.

Many animals are still in foster homes because local shelters and humane societies suffered severe damage from this year's storms.

Some of those pets may already be in their forever homes, they (and their new families) just don't know it yet.

Because as Kate Fullwood, Marketing and Development Director of Dorchester Paws, puts it, "if you're going to fail at anything, fail at fostering."

Sara Tonks is a content meteorologist with weather.com and has a bachelors and a masters degree from Georgia Tech in Earth and Atmospheric Sciences along with a masters degree from Unity Environmental University in Marine Science.