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It was a dark and stormy night when a van’s tall lights lit up the bedroom. Peering out the window, my husband thought he saw tiny paws scamper toward the manicured lot across the street from our townhouse. The next day, it was still drizzling when we went to investigate.
We heard what sounded like tiny mews coming from the storm drain on the other side of the street. Later that evening, some of the neighbors were standing by the grate. We went over. They said they thought they heard kittens in the drain. We could see a skinny young black and white cat running between the parked cars, hiding by the wheels. After the humans left, it was walking on and around the storm drain. The mewing sounded louder when the cat was there.
With stories of amazing rescues running through my mind, we called the fire department. A while later, the flashing red lights and blaring siren of a ladder truck came down the street. Parking on the street above the drain, with the engine and lights still running, three firefighters got out, found the next drain and opened a man hole cover.
They shone their flashlights down inside the drain. They said the county doesn’t allow them to go down there if they don’t see anything. However, they moved the grate and one of the younger men climbed down and crawled partway into the drain. He came out and said that “it branches off” in there. The other man signaled for him to come up.
After putting the very heavy steel grate back, they told the small gathering how sorry they were and drove away.
My husband ordered some humane traps. We left opened cans of cat food around the storm drain and dropped a couple down. They were empty in the morning.
The first night after the traps arrived, I put one as far under the back of our SUV as it would go. The next morning, we had a stunning gray and white tuxedo cat, safe in the trap. But there was still mewing coming from the storm drain, and the cans of food were empty.
I continued dropping cans of food in the drain. One night, we saw a little kitten come out to eat. Before we left, we saw the kitten reach out from inside the drain and pull the food can in.
My husband figured out how to tie ropes to a trap to be lowered into the storm drain. Making sure to tie the ropes to the grate, so we could pull it back up, we set the trap and lowered it into the drain, a little after the time I had been feeding the kitty. Almost immediately we caught… a raccoon! We tried again and got a little gray and white tabby kitten.
The first cat we named Stormy and the kitten is TK (TopKat).
Story submitted by Gail Blacker.
This story was originally shared on The Animal Rescue Site. Share your very own rescue story here!
