A kitten was saved from a sewer at the corner of Seventh St. and French St. on Friday, May 8.
While walking down the street on his lunch break, Jacob Holmstrom heard the kitten meowing from the sewer grate. “I looked down and saw this little head popping out of one of the sewers,” he explained. “I just knew I had to stop and do something.”
Jeff Gibbens, Assistant Director of Public Works for the City of Erie Bureau of Streets, said they attempted to push a camera through the pipe. When that didn’t work, they flushed the kitten out of the sewer with water. “We were able to flush the cat slowly and lightly out to the other side,” he stated. The rescue took nearly two hours.
Gibbens emphasized the crew’s dedication to saving the kitten. “A lot of credit to that crew because they took their time and effort to try to really, really save this cat’s life,” he said. “It’s things like this that people don’t even know we do, so it’s a very good feeling to know that we can save an animal and help the city out in any way we can.”
After the rescue, the unharmed kitten went home with Noelle Blanchard, CEO of Noelle’s Foster Kittens. “We will evaluate her and give her a bath, and get her some food, because I know she’s probably starving,” Blanchard stated. “She looks like she’s probably about, I’d say, six to eight weeks old, so we will fully vet her and then we will put her up for adoption. Hopefully, we’ll find her a home soon.”
You can follow Noelle’s Foster Kittens on Facebook to see the rescue kitten’s journey to her new home outside the sewer. https://www.facebook.com/NoellesFosterKittens