Seeking higher ground while monitoring your animals live

Posted 11:30 a.m. Monday

Ten pigs, 12 rabbits, 30 chickens, a horse, goat and donkey: Raymond Burns decided to abandon the Ark idea and instead bailed for drier grounds on Saturday after the first round of devastating rain from Hurricane Harvey.

The Cedar Creek resident in Dayton knew the area was prone to flooding.

“We tried to prep for it,” a nervous Burns said, moving everything of value he had into the unfinished barn built up on a mound.

“That first rain on Saturday was so hard, we decided to leave immediately,” he said.

His family has two small vehicles and Raymond knew waiting could be dangerous for them.

“I wasn’t going to take a chance,” he said. “I knew I could always come back if I was safe, but I couldn’t always leave.”

So, the Burns family made the move to leave shortly after 3 p.m. on Saturday.

He put out enough food and water to feed the animals over the next several days.

The father of five children packed up his two vehicles, his wife behind the steering wheel of one and him in the other, and they hit the road.

The savvy father had already been on Airbnb.com to search for a place for his family to stay. His diligence paid off, but the only one he could find out of the area was in Flint, Texas.

He reserved a place to stay in the little East Texas spot outside of Tyler and despite the flooding back home, his fortunes were changing because it was the last one available in the state.

They trekked through multiple road closures resulting from the flood waters and arrived in Flint six hours later instead of the normal four-hour drive.

He didn’t completely abandon his animals.

He has a close eye on them round the clock with video-recording equipment and live cameras to monitor their well-being.

Burns is the owner of a small, wireless Internet company complete with servers and a tower to supply Internet to his neighbors in the rural community in which he lives.

“A lot of them can’t afford Internet and so we just take donations to help cover the cost the best we can,” he said.

The humanitarian effort provides his community with access to information that proved to be key for them during the worst storm in county history.

The computer developer for Pct. 2 Harris County Commissioner Jack Moorman said he couldn’t risk the lives of his family, but didn’t have a way to evacuate his animals either. It was a heart-wrenching decision.

“It will be rough the next few days, but I know they’ll be fine,” he said.

Until then, he’ll keep a wary eye on them, praying for the best in the company of his secure family.