Cat 5 Catpocalypse!

Cecily and I have been on vacation in the mountains of North Carolina since August 19, so we have endured the runup to Irma mostly as an emotional cyclone!  Inevitably we needed to head back to civilization, and Irma only delayed our need to return.  However when it became clear that Irma was going to be a nasty bitch who ate trees and houses, we decided to go only as far as Atlanta and hideout at my brother-in-law's house until Irma did her thing.

The most trying part of the experience was extracting my sister-in-law, Tracy from Naples, and daughter, Shaune in Tampa, from the disaster zones so they wouldn't be killed. Neither one of them really wanted to leave, but after the media scared them to death enough they reluctantly headed out......toting Tucker and our two cats.  So here is THAT story which is the real horror show!

For those of you who know Noose, Meese and Tucker, you know that they are independent and....how shall I put it....vocal when they are unhappy.

We asked Nick Romary, one of our LDM team to help Tracy stuff each cat into a cat carrier that was two sizes too small.  Meese, the monk, was submissive, but Noose, was having none of it.  I got a frantic call from Nick that they couldn't get Noose in the 'box', so what should they do.  The terror and hesitancy in his voice conjured up a scene of biting and scratching that I had only experienced a few times with Noose, but was glad that I was dealing with this from a distance of 600 miles!  I told them to put him in a pillow case and then lower the pillow case into the cat carrier, which apparently they did without major injury!

So then Tracy, her cat, Tucker and our two cats headed up I-75 for Atlanta where we were waiting for them.  They got as far as Ellenton (just north of Sarasota) when Tracy's car crapped out, so the menagerie had to find a motel to spend the night.  The next morning, we managed to guide them to Caitlin's house in Tampa where they camped with Caitlin's roommate and her cat....get the picture?  Catpocalypse!  It was truly a "Cat 5" situation!

As the warnings about Irma became more dire, we persuaded Shaune to collect our animals and head to Atlanta while Tracy decided she preferred a local shelter.  More on that nightmare another time.

So Shaune drove all night with the newly reconstituted menagerie of Tucker, our two cats in their '2Xnothing' boxes, and Shaune's two dogs, Anabelle and Stella.  They drove from 1am all night long and arrived early Friday morning. 

The cats were in 'bad humor' after being in the boxes for 10 hours and had urinated in the cat carriers and on themselves, so Shaune's car was literally a 'shit show'.  Cecily and I grabbed the two cats and made a bee-line for the tub and gave the cats a bath.  For both cats, that was the final indignity!  Here they had endured confinement, noise, strange people, strange hotel rooms and houses, and now finally the people who are supposed to love them.....were trying to drown them!!  Meese has no claws so he was manageable, but Noose was having a hissy!  He bit the crap out of my thumb and was a nightmare to clean off and dry.

So we all spent the next three days nursing our wounds... and pride... with the cats in the bathroom and the dogs running free.  Fortunately Ed has a fenced in yard which they loved.  Shaune and her dogs left on Monday morning and Cecily and I left on Wednesday morning.

We are now back in Naples and lordy its a mess!  Trees uprooted everywhere, signs damaged, street signs ripped out of the ground, flooded areas, etc.  Our neighborhood is pretty nasty, although our place came through the storm with relatively little damage.  Lots of tree branches down and all kinds of detritus everywhere.  But it will all clean up in a few weeks.  More problematic is the lack of gas, power, internet, banking services, etc.  This is a resilient community though and people here know what a wonderful place it is, so I am sure the shell shock will be short-lived.

So for all of you who wondered if we survived, the answer is yes.  We will live to be threatened by another monster storm on another day.....hopefully not for a while though!