Patience is a 24 year old South African penguin at New Orleans's Audubon Aquarium of the Americas. When Hurricane Katrina hit in 2005, the aquarium is severely damaged and with no electricity or relief in sight, the temperature in the aquarium reaches dangerously high degrees, putting the penguins in peril. Patience, and the 18 other penguins, along with some of the other zoo animals, must leave their home and their favorite human, Tom, the penguin keeper. Tom drives his penguins to Baton Rouge where an airplane transfers them to the Monterey Bay Aquarium in California where they'll live until they can return home to New Orleans. Based on real life events.