Reunited with lives to spare
Published: September 24, 2005
Charlotte Pierce, a New Orleans grandmother displaced by Hurricane Katrina, found a bit of furry comfort this week when she was reunited with her pet cat, Baby, an unlikely survivor of the deadly storm.
“It’s amazing,” said Pierce’s granddaughter, Leslie Lally, a nurse at Scottsdale Healthcare Shea hospital. “The change in my grandmother’s personality has been so significant in the time that the cat has been back.”
Pierce and Baby were reunited Wednesday, about three weeks after Pierce and other family members evacuated New Orleans.
They didn’t have enough room in their vehicle, so they left the cat in the second story of a brick office building to weather the storm. They gave Baby enough water and food for a week or so and figured she would be safe until they came back to retrieve her a few days later, Lally said.
Instead, after the New Orleans flood, residents were barred from returning and the family feared the worst for the 18-year-old Siamese mix.
Lally said, “Each day I was thinking, ‘She’s not going to live much longer because she doesn’t have much food and water and there’s no electricity. I wish we could get to her.’ ”
Family members left a description of Baby with personnel from the Arizona Humane Society in the faint hope that someone would recover the cat. Arizona-based animal aid workers had been conducting pet rescues in Louisiana since just after the hurricane struck.
The prospects were slim, said Kim Noetzel, vice president of community relations for the humane society.
But after three weeks’ worth of failed phone calls and e-mails, Lally reached her sister’s ex-husband, who had returned to New Orleans. He found his way onto a boat with animal rescue personnel and reporters, Lally said. They broke into the unlit building and found Baby.
Animal aid workers took the cat to a veterinary hospital and used IVs to rehydrate her, Lally said. “We got word right away, and my grandmother started crying, she was so happy. We were all screaming in the house that the cat was going to be OK.”
Aid workers decided not to ship Baby as part of an airlift by the Arizona Air National Guard that brought dozens of abandoned animals to Arizona on Sept. 25, Noetzel said.
“She’s been through quite a bit of trauma, and she would have been on a military aircraft with 100 barking dogs,” she said.
Instead, aid workers put Baby in an animal crate, and a veterinary technician who was flying to Phoenix brought the cat along as carry-on luggage.
Continental Airlines workers allowed the cat to travel in the main cabin. Pierce was waiting at the gate at Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport when Baby came off the plane.
“It was very touching,” Noetzel said. “They both were very happy.”
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