Living in a hurricane prone area that has been wiped out by a storm (Homestead) I know exactly what you are talking about. Many pets wandered around looking for their owners or something to eat/drink after storms. One funny thing that happened after Andrew was dozens of primates running all over the nuclear plant down here, Turkey Point. They had "escaped" during the storm from Moneky Jungle, a zoo type place for primates, and made their way to the plant. For days people were running after them trying to catch em. To this day, chimps etc can be found in the everglades that are either from the storm or decendents of the original storm chimps.
What we do is either take our pets with us if we leave or we set up a designated room in the house that is our hurricane "shelter" and leave the animals in their with us. With that said the fact remains that I will not leave them, either they come with us or we stay together.
I lived just north of Cutler Ridge during Andrew, and one reason I stayed was my 3 cats. When all hell broke loose, they found places to hide, no problem, it was the rest of us in the house that were in real danger. I decided that what I will do is that for the next bad storm, I will leave early and take my pets with me, I wont stay at any shelter, I'll get out of town. That is definately something I do not want to experience again.