When the last major hurricane hit Florida, I remember learning that the evacuation shelters do not allow animals. With 15,000 people in those shelters, how many of them would have had to leave their pets behind to protect their own lives? My guess is a huge percentage of those people had pets.
There was one particular older man that they interviewed afterward who had returned home to search for his dog, desperately hoping he'd survived the devastation. He'd had to flee at the last moment, and he seemed as if his dog was the only thing that meant anything to him. I remember thinking "then why the fuck would you leave him behind???" But I guess he did what he had to do. It was heartbreaking

And I never did learn if he ever found his dog.
But I guess the point is that we can all say that we'd never do it, but until or unless we are in that situation, we just never know.