June 06--Lilly, the cat who disappeared in an Allentown storm-water sewer last month, returned to an inlet late Wednesday and meowed for help.
Her loud cries at 11:15 p.m. from under Sixth and Turner streets caught the ear of her owner, Debora Perez, and her rescuers were on the way. Within a half-hour, the stinky, wet 1-year-old cat was out.
Perez was thrilled to have her little Lilly back, and she thanked the city firefighters who went to great lengths to reach the lost pet.
"I appreciate what they did for her today, because I was worried," Perez said as she walked home in the rain with Lilly still safely in the cagelike trap that caught her.
Perez, who lives just a few doors north on Sixth Street, said city animal control officers set the trap in the sewer earlier Wednesday.
The firefighters hesitated to go out Wednesday night because they had gone out twice before looking for Lilly. But with the cat trapped, they knew they could retrieve her quickly.
As the cat belted out urgent meows, audible a half block away, two Allentown firetrucks rolled up and firefighters jumped out to remove the heavy sewer grate.
Two firefighters hooked the grate with crowbars. A third man pushed it by hand. Together they cleared a path down to the cat. One reached in and lifted out the trap, Lilly and all.
Gray and black, skinny and small, Lily ran outside May 23 during a housing inspection, Perez said.
"The housing inspector came and they left the front door open," she said. "She escaped but I don't how she got down there" in the sewer.
When firefighters tried to find Lilly that night, the cat apparently was scared away by the sound of hammers knocking away the bits of pavement that had sealed shut the two sewer grates on the west corners of the intersection.
By the time the grates were removed that night, Lilly was gone and her meows had stopped. It wasn't until the trap was set, with food, that she showed up again.
-- Frank Warner
Copyright 2014 - The Morning Call (Allentown, Pa.)
